Chapter Text
All things considered, Childe is not scared . He’d won a scholarship to the school and sure , he’s probably going to be one of, like, three new people, and he doesn’t know a single soul in the school, but hey - Childe has never been one to be scared.
Privately, Childe thinks the green tie and white shirt are a little too posh for his liking, and the new school’s a little too far of a walk away from the train station given the scorching heat, but yes, he supposes he’s a little excited for his first day. Just a little, of course.
(Officially, orientation was yesterday, but it had also been the last day for the one for one promotion at the theme park and Kaeya had managed to convince Childe to go with him so he’d missed orientation. Whatever. Childe will kill himself if he has to come up with another fun fact about himself, anyway.
Through mouthfuls of food, Kaeya had informed him about one of his new schoolmates, a certain Albedo that Kaeya had described as a ‘pretty little blonde, can’t miss him’, which at best was useless, because Childe had seen Kaeya use those exact words to describe a golden retriever.
“You’re good friends? So I should seek him out to talk to him?” Childe had asked.
Laughing, Kaeya shook his head, “Friends? No, of course not - he doesn’t know I exist.”
“Then why did you tell me about him?”
“Oh, he’s really good at Chemistry. He beat me in last year’s Olympiad,” Kaeya waved a hand around, “You know.”
“Kaeya, I don’t even take Chemistry,” Childe sighed, “And you literally only went for the Olympiad because your junior paid you to take his place.”
“Details.”)
So as Childe stands in front of the gates of his new school, he realises something very important: he has no idea where he’s supposed to report. And as it seems, he’s already late for assembly, so he walks up to the security guard stationed at the office and plasters on the most boyish grin he can manage, “Uncle, do you know where I’m supposed to be?”
The security guard shrugs without even looking away from the trashy rom-com playing on his phone (seriously, what is this guy getting paid for?).
Childe grits his teeth, “Uncle?”
The security guard pauses his drama with a sigh, looking up, “Kid, just scan yourself into the school and ask a teacher.”
“Um,” Childe says, eloquently, “I don’t think I have a card.”
“You’re supposed to bring your card every day,” the older man sighs, “Or you’ll need to wait outside until your teacher comes and gets you. Really, kid, you should know this by now.”
“No, I didn’t forget- I don’t have a card,” Childe frowns, “And I don’t know who my teacher is.”
“You lost it? Replacements can be obtained from the general office at $50 per card,” the security guard turns back to his drama, “Now just wait here until the national anthem finishes playing.”
“No, I’m new ,” Childe insists, “And I wasn’t here for orientation yesterday, so I don’t know anything.”
“Just stand there,” the security guard says, “Someone will collect you.”
So, stupidly, Childe stands and listens to the Teyvat Anthem play over the loudspeakers. The audio quality is so good that he’s really starting to wonder what this school is electing to spend their money on. Good loudspeakers? Really? When their security guard was watching rom-coms on duty?
He already regrets letting Kaeya convince him to go to the amusement park yesterday, by the way. History has taught men never to listen to Kaeya Alberich (there was the Pigeon Incident. And the Getting Mauled By Monkeys Incident. And the Only Two People In School Dressed In Maid Outfits Because They Had Gotten Dress-up Day Wrong Incident. And the Please-Sir-Policeman-I-Swear-I’m-Not-Doing-Drugs-I-Just-Decided-To-Cook-In-The-Forest Incident. Childe believes his point has been made.), but history has also demonstrated Childe’s inability to learn from his mistakes. Which leads to the current situation.
There are better things to focus on now, though, such as the smooth, velvety voice coming from the beautiful, majestic, state-of-the-art loudspeakers. Childe isn’t a big fan of podcasts or ASMR (and has never considered himself as someone with a thing for hot voices ), but this! This voice! This melodious, deep timbre should only exist in heaven!
Childe tries not to swoon there and then as he marvels in the wonderful, wonderful voice of the student announcer. (He was advertising a blood drive, something that is decidedly unsexy, but Childe finds himself listening out for where he can sign up for this blood drive. His blood type is O+. He’s literally the most generous and versatile blood donor ever. And okay, maybe hot announcer voice would be there. Who knows, right?) He makes a mental note to tell Kaeya about this later, fully aware that he’d probably get laughed at, but hey- Childe’s a big sharer about his life! Kaeya’s his best friend!
“Tartaglia?”
A gold-clad lady walks toward him with deliberate steps, clipboard in hand as she arches a perfectly tweezed eyebrow at Childe, jolting him out of his reverie.
“That would be me,” Childe raises his hand awkwardly, “Um, you can call me Childe.”
“Very well,” the woman inclines her head at him politely, “I am Ms. Ningguang, head of administration. Here’s your ID card - please bring it with you every day, as you will require it to scan into school and into the bathrooms.”
Against his better judgement, Childe takes the card given to him by Ningguang and blurts out, “Why the bathrooms?”
Ningguang coughs delicately, handing him another piece of paper, “There have been, ah, altercations in the past which brought us to take certain measures, this being one of them. Additionally, this is your timetable: please adhere to the 5-minute movement time between classes so as to maintain punctuality.” She fixes him with a look, “And punctuality is of utmost importance.”
Childe nods.
“It’s too late to go to your homeroom now, so you can head directly to your first class,” Ningguang gestures at the timetable in his hands, “If I am correct, Economics.”
“Thanks, Ms. Ningguang,” Childe grins, “See you around!”
Ningguang looks mildly surprised as her lips quirk up with amusement, “See you around I shall, Childe.”
It seems everyone’s moving to their classes now, what with the throngs of students rushing up and down the staircases—good news, because Childe has absolutely no idea where his Economics classroom is located.
He grabs the first student he comes across, “Do you know where my Econ class is?”
The student, a confused-looking blonde, disentangles himself from Childe’s grasp, “Excuse me?”
“Sorry,” Childe sighs, showing the student his timetable, “I’m new, and I have no idea where my classroom is.”
“Oh,” the student cranes his neck over to look at it, “Oh, I know where that is, it’s in the basement, next to my Psych class. I can walk you there.”
“There’s a basement ?” Talk about swanky schools.
“Um, not really,” the student shrugs, “It’s kind of complicated.”
Childe takes in the other boy’s easy smile and head of platinum blonde (Childe tries to stop himself from blurting out the first thing on his mind. Childe fails.), “By the way, are you Albedo?”
The student blinks again in confusion, “Uh, no? The name’s Kaveh. Isn’t Albedo the genius chemist?”
“So I’ve heard,” Childe nods serenely, internally slapping himself for asking the question when he’d just met this guy two minutes ago, “I’m Ajax Tartaglia Childe. But you can call me Childe.”
Kaveh grins, “So Tartaglia’s, like, your middle name? Doesn’t that mean ‘The Fool’ in Italian opera?”
“Oh, you know Italian opera? Like, commedia dell’arte?” Childe cocks his head, “I’ve been told it means ‘The Stutterer’.”
“Because that’s… better,” Kaveh offers, lips quirking up in a smile.
“And that is why I go by Childe,” Childe nods, “So yes! Pleasure to meet you, Kaveh. Also,” he scrambles to explain the earlier question about Albedo (who he’s never seen), “Um, I asked if you were Albedo because my friend told me about him. Described him as a pretty blonde, and, you know…”
Childe feels himself reddening. He did not mean to let the ‘pretty’ slip out—hell, Kaveh isn’t ugly by any means, but he’s not hitting on him, for fuck’s sake-
“You think I’m pretty?” Kaveh tilts his head back and laughs incredulously, “Wow, that’s forward. Your friend’s exact words, or your personal opinion?”
Fuck it . Childe had promised himself his new reputation was going to be mysterious and brooding instead of the babbling fool his previous school had known him as, but you know what ? He’s going to own this slip-up. Sexy flirt is just as good of an image as mysterious brooding emo boy is (and realistically, Childe’s never going to be a mysterious brooding emo boy).
So he owns it.
“My friend’s exact words were ‘pretty little blonde’, but I certainly think very highly of your appearance myself,” Childe tries for a suave expression, but he’s pretty sure he just looks constipated.
Kaveh squints, “I’m like… your height.”
“So maybe I made a little mistake,” Childe acknowledges, “Oh, is this the basement?”
The ‘basement’, so to speak, is really just a flight of stairs heading down the side of the hill because surprise surprise, their school is on top of the hill. Explains the too-long walk from the subway station. But it is very nice, and all the classrooms have air-conditioning (a luxury! A real fucking luxury!), and Childe is rather pleased with his new learning environment.
“Oh, by the way,” Childe remembers, “Why do we have to scan our cards before we go into the bathroom?”
“ Oh ,” Kaveh sniggers, “So you’ve heard. Long story, I can tell you later if you’re interested. Just text me over the Akasha.”
“What’s-”
“Sorry, my bad,” Kaveh pulls his phone out, “The Akasha is our learning platform, teachers post homework there and you can start individual or group chats with your schoolmates as long as you know their names… Here, that’s me. And there’s your Econ classroom.”
Kaveh follows him in as he stands awkwardly in the front of the classroom, trying to spot a seat where he wouldn’t be intruding on anyone’s private conversation.
“You can sit here,” one of the students in the class speaks up quietly, “There shouldn’t be anyone at our table yet.”
“Oh,” Childe sticks his hand out rigidly, “Hi.”
The boy takes it, “Hi.”
Silence falls. It’s awkward, and Childe hates awkwardness, so he speaks again—but he really shouldn’t. It’s nine in the morning and Childe has gotten barely four hours of sleep, so he just says the only conversation starter he can think of, “You wouldn’t happen to be Albedo, would you?”
Confusion dawns on the delicate features of the boy in front of him. Childe winces.
Behind him, Kaveh lets out a laugh, “You can’t just ask everyone that!”
“Why are you still here?” Childe wails.
“Kaveh,” the boy in front of him nods at Kaveh in greeting.
“Kazuha,” Kaveh waves, “This is Childe, he’s new, and he’s a little odd.”
“I’m right here,” Childe groans, staring intently at Kaveh to transmit a very important message.
Pretty. Little. Blonde.
Kaveh jerks his eyes violently toward the red streak on Kazuha’s head.
Not blonde .
Childe narrows his eyes.
Mostly blonde.
Kaveh claps Childe on the back, “Well! Kazuha, I leave him in your care.”
As it turns out, his first lesson of the day starts off relatively uneventfully. Their teacher is an eccentric woman named Beidou who enthusiastically waves her pointer around like a claymore and has an eyepatch matching Kaeya’s. She’s also wearing a shirt that says ‘BE GAY DO CRIME’, and her laptop wallpaper says ‘Robbing a bank: every woman’s dream!’
Kazuha takes in Childe’s shocked look with an amused chuckle, “That’s Ms. Beidou for you,” he whispers, “She may look, um…”
“Eccentric,” Childe offers.
“More like absolutely fucking insane,” Kazuha mutters, earning himself another shocked look from Childe. The teacher was shocking enough, but Kazuha had looked so calm! So sweet! So gentle! So incapable of calling teachers absolutely fucking insane! As Childe berates himself for judging a book by its cover, Kazuha continues, “But she’s the best Economics teacher in the school.”
Childe squints at the projector, “Does her deck of slides actually say ‘Economics: A 2-year Course to Tax Evasion’?”
“Oh,” Kazuha frowns too, “Huh. That’s-”
“Morning, crew!” Beidou booms, “Nice to meet you all and great to see you in one piece after the break! Before I teach you the ancient, delicate craft of tax evasion, looks like we have some new faces in the class-”
The door slams open and a boy stalks in, face half-obscured by a gigantic hat. He looks up, expression bored as he begins explaining why he’s late, but a quick sweep around the room and all thoughts of that are gone .
“ AJAX ?” He screeches.
“ KUNIKUZUSHI ?” Childe yells at the same time.
“You guys… know each other?” Kazuha raises an eyebrow, “You got beef or something?”
“ Beef ?” Childe spits. Beef can’t even begin to describe the relationship he had with this long-lost childhood acquaint- nemesis that he’d previously thought had moved to fucking Inazuma or something and disappeared off the grid (evidently, he is now back on the grid, considering he’s currently glaring at Childe from across the room), but. When they were five , Kunikuzushi had stomped on his toy car in the playground. When they were six , Kunikuzushi stabbed him with a fucking pencil in kindergarten. When they were seven , Kunikuzushi vandalised the wall of their elementary school and blamed it on him. When they were eight - well, Kunikuzushi disappeared when they were eight, and Childe had rejoiced .
Too soon, it seems.
Too soon.
“All right,” a slightly bewildered Beidou says, “It seems some of us already know the new faces. Now, Scaramouche, would you be so kind as to take a seat? Next to Kazuha there.”
So Scaramouche was going to be seated at his table . Great. Just great. His day keeps getting better.
The rest of the class is spent glaring at Scaramouche—what a dumb fucking name he goes by now, as dumb as his dumb fucking hat—and judging Beidou’s interesting teaching style with Kazuha. Childe doesn’t think he can last much longer in a class where his teacher refers to economics as tax evasion.
Kazuha is a good soul, Childe decides, but cannot for the life of him understand why he actually seems to be getting along with Kunikuzushi. Scaramouche , he supposes he should call him now, snorting slightly at the correction.
It has already been established that Childe is not a stickler for the rules. It is thus to no one’s surprise that Childe makes the excruciatingly easy decision to get distracted in the first class of his first day at his new school, pulling up both the Akasha platform and his messaging app on his laptop.
KAEYA, CHILDE (2)
childe: OMFG GUESS WHOS IN MY ECON CLASS
childe: fucking kunikuzushi
childe: BRAH
childe: except now he goes by scaramouche bc hes fucking pretentious
kaeya: wtf
kaeya: isnt that ur childhood enemy
kaeya: ur nappy nemesis
childe: why wld you call him that
childe: thtas disgusting
childe: hes sitting at my table
childe: HES GLARING AT ME
kaeya: well
kaeya: dont lose
kaeya: glare back
childe: im gonna be the bigger person
kaeya: and let him glare at you?
kaeya: nuh uh
kaeya: dont think so
kaeya: pettiness rules the world
childe: wait omfg also i wanted to tell you this jn but i forgot
childe: this morning i heard the student announcer promote this blood drive
childe: and omg his voice was heavenly i literally fell in love. like i love his voice ITS BEAUTIFUL its like honeyed… something
kaeya: ? slut
childe: shut up you dont get it IT WAS SO ATTRACTIVE
childe: so smooth
childe: like aged wine
kaeya: what if hes like rly ugly
kaeya: like an asshole or sth and like absolutely hideous
kaeya: like maybe he has 2 noses
childe: ?
childe: no my angel of music has to be beautiful
childe: i can feel it in my bones
childe: also i hvent found albedo and i alr asked two people
kaeya: ? ok
kaeya: um ajax have u considered that like maybe albedo is not a fucking wheres wally
kaeya: its just some guy i told you about
childe: ya ok btu like im curious
childe: you called him pretty
kaeya: i called ur mom pretty
childe: she is
kaeya: yeah she is
kaeya: ok ttyl gotta do chem
He should’ve known Kaeya wouldn’t be supportive of his little crush on Mr Beauteous Voice. Kaeya is never supportive of any of his romantic endeavours. Granted, most of them (all of them) had gone badly, but still! He needs his best friend’s support! Childe sighs, switching over to the Akasha.
Kaveh isn’t listening either, it appears, because he has 5 unread messages on his Akasha and he has a grand total of one (1) friendly acquaintance in the school. One, Childe says, not counting Scaramouche because he’s strictly not an acquaintance (they know each other too well, that stupid bitch who hates coconut) and he’s not exactly friendly . Well, maybe two, if you count Kazuha.
KAVEH, CHILDE (2)
kaveh: bro
kaveh: what lesson do you have after this
kaveh: mine’s math
kaveh: with mr w.
kaveh: we can walk together and i can tell you about the toilets
childe: oh me too
childe: bet
kaveh: paying attention in class are we
childe: says you
kaveh: touche
childe: are you good at math btw
kaveh: im decent
kaveh: why
childe: im terrible
Childe’s a little pleased at the revelation that he’ll have a friendly face to look forward to, because there’s absolutely nothing else about maths worth looking forward to. Yes, Childe hasn’t been to a single Mathematics class in this school. No, that does not deter Childe from passing judgement on the subject.
Childe’s awful at Mathematics. It’s true he won the academic scholarship to come study at this school (surprisingly enough it had been entirely merit-based, and Childe’s still a little confused why he got it, but he’s not exactly about to complain), but that had been despite his horrendous mathematical ability, not because of it. He literally scraped by in the subject—his grades weren’t bad, per se, but Mathematics was just so horrible because he spent 90% of his time studying for it over all his other subjects and even then he was never going to top the level in Math or whatever.
(Don’t get him started on the numerous nights he’d spent crying into his hands from frustration at being unable to solve math questions. Dy can go shove Dx up its ass or however the fuck differentiation works.)
So it is with great dread and sorrow that Childe drags himself out of his seat, walks to the door, slams the door in Scaramouche’s face (hooray! Ajax 1, Kunikuzushi 0) and sighs at a waiting Kaveh, “I can’t believe I have to take maths.”
“Everyone does,” Kaveh points out acutely, “And you picked Math II, not even Math I. You’d think you’d be good at it.”
Childe throws his hands up, “Well, sorry! I’m an academic nuclear bomb when it comes to everything except math, but I need to take the most challenging course load possible because I’m on scholarship and am totally going to get into Snezhnaya National University.”
“Ah, I get that,” Kaveh pats his arm comfortingly, “Me too, except I’m aiming for the Akademiya. I’m gonna be an architect.”
Childe’s eyes light up, “So you’re good at math! You can help me!”
Kaveh winces, “I’m not terrible , but even for an aspiring architect, math is too much. Who needs to calculate their mortgages and loans when their loaners will do it for them?”
“The whole point of calculating your own mortgages and loans is so that your loan sharks won’t scam you of your money,” a foreign voice adds: a silver-haired man who’s standing behind them, arms crossed, “Really, senior , you’d think someone like you would have a little more common sense.”
“Senior?” Childe turns, “Hey…?”
“Alhaitham,” the other offers.
“Haitham!” Kaveh scowls, “Can’t you just empathise with me for a second?”
“I’m afraid I cannot,” Alhaitham says, “Empathising implies that I’ve struggled with the same problems before, but I’ve never found any challenge in mathematics.”
Ugh. Childe hates this guy already.
“Let’s go, Childe,” Kaveh announces, “We’re going back to the main block. Junior, are you coming with us, or-”
“I have a free period now,” Alhaitham cuts him off and takes off.
“Who is that guy?”
“Haitham,” Kaveh rolls his eyes exasperatedly, “He’s a friend, I guess . A very grudging one, but a friend nonetheless.”
“That’s-”
Oh . Oh my god. Oh holy mother of god. Oh madre de dios , who is that ethereal creature who just strolled past him? That Greek God-like physique and fire-like red hair? That stunning curve of his neck?
Childe’s a little dazed as his voice breaks halfway through his sentence, “Holy shit. I think I just fell in love.”
Kaveh blinks, “With Alhaitham? ”
“Archons, no!” Childe glares at him, “I just saw the love of my life. An absolutely ethereal beauty.”
His companion laughs, “Where?”
Childe raises a shaking finger and points in the direction where the love of his life had just headed in, “There.”
Kaveh follows his finger and holds back a snigger at the student Childe’s pointing at, “ That one? He looks like a whopperflower.”
“ What ?” Childe gasps, affronted, before he squints and realises the heavenly being is no longer there, and the person standing in his place does truly bear a striking resemblance to a whopperflower, “No, not him, he’s left already.”
“Ooooooh,” Kaveh wriggles his eyebrows at Childe, “So love is in the air!”
“I need to see him again,” Childe sighs dreamily, “Him and Mr Beauteous Voice.”
“Who’s- do I even want to know?” Kaveh asks, hand frozen in mid-wave as he says hi to yet another friend along the corridor.
“Probably not,” Childe grins, “But there’s no harm knowing.”
(They are a good fifteen minutes late to their Mathematics class because the conversation somehow shifts to their failed romantic endeavours and Childe got a little too carried away with his favourite tale concerning a particularly crazy talking stage, one he likes to dub the Slime, the Polearm and the Travelling Teapot Salesman.
Then, Kaveh decides he wants to defecate. Childe is not about to walk into the classroom alone 3 minutes late and get scolded by their teacher, so he chooses the next best alternative: to defecate with Kaveh.)
While otherwise occupied, Kaveh also tells him about the famous Bathroom Incident™️, which turns out to be a series of Bathroom Incidents™️.
Incident one: a student (his name was allegedly kept a secret, but everyone knows it’s Arataki Itto) was attempting to take pictures of his feet in one of the toilet stalls so that he could set up an OnlyFans. He proceeded to slip and get his foot stuck in the toilet bowl for an hour and a half, and was only found because he’d started an Instagram livestream of his foot wedged tightly in the toilet bowl.
Incident two: Bennett, a poor junior with terrible luck, had walked into the same toilet as incident one (shown above), and had gotten hit on the head by the falling cubicle door. Having been rendered unconscious, he was likewise only found hours later when a couple sought out that bathroom to make out.
Incident three: still taking place in the same bathroom as the first two (seriously? Childe’s starting to think the feng shui there isn’t very good), the heir to the Feiyun Commerce Guild had apparently tried to engage an exorcist to free the toilet of any sinister spirits. The exorcist was also from their school, and when he tried his probably fake magic, it is said that a bloody woman dressed in bloodstained white robes had appeared in the bathroom. The exorcist had promptly fainted, and when his employer had gone to get help from the neighbouring classroom a whole class had tried to look into the bathroom, with at least twenty people swearing up and down that they’d seen the bloody woman.
(“Oh, and by the way, we’re in that toilet now!” Kaveh had added cheerfully, “So don’t be alarmed if you see any women in white.”
“ What the fuck? I think my shit just went back in.”
“Ew.”)
Their Mathematics teacher, thankfully, just waves them in without batting an eye, and they hurriedly sit at the farthest of the three tables in class. Childe gets introduced to yet more of Kaveh’s friends: a white-haired boy who goes by Cyno, and a boy with double green braids who introduces himself as Venti.
Venti has the honour of joining their table because his friends at the middle table had gotten sick of his whining and sent him to sit at another table, and as he has very kindly informed Childe, the group at the last table were an absolutely terrifying group of Fontainians—Neuvillette, apparently, has dragon blood. Childe cannot tell if Venti is joking.
Logically, Childe should probably be listening to the lecture on complex numbers, but it’s too early in the morning for this (it’s 11am), so he turns when Kaveh elbows him slyly, silent question in his eyes. The blonde jerks his head towards the table in the middle—more specifically, at the most beautiful man Childe had ever seen .
And no, Childe isn’t falling in love for the third time that day—the man is the same one who had brushed past him earlier in the corridors. He’d recognise that beautiful mane of red hair anywhere . Trying his best to keep the squeal quiet (it’s his first day , for fuck’s sake), he grabs Kaveh’s wrist, “Oh- oh my god.”
Kaveh looks at him, confused, “What?”
“I just-” Childe shakes his head. He can’t just go around announcing his crush to everyone . Fuck, he doesn’t know Kaveh that well yet, and he doesn’t know the beautiful angel’s name. Or talked to him even once. It’s simply a bad idea, all things considered. So he just shakes his head, “Nevermind. Headache.”
“Well, get well soon,” Kaveh shrugs, “But look! It’s your favourite.”
“My… favourite?” Childe blinks. He’s being that obvious?
“...Yeah? The blonde, look. That’s Albedo,” Kaveh motions with his chin, “Weren’t you asking all around for him just now?”
“Oh,” Childe’s eyes snap away from the redhead with much difficulty, finally spotting the petite blonde next to him. Right, this one did match Kaeya’s description of Albedo; grudgingly, even Childe has to admit that ‘pretty little blonde’ suits Albedo perfectly.
“Well,” Childe shrugs, “He’s in our class? Gotta tell my friend that, I suppose.”
“Oh, he isn’t,” Venti cuts in, “I think he has a free now, he’s just sitting in on today’s class because of… reasons.”
Childe arches an eyebrow, “Reasons.”
“Yeah,” Venti nods serenely, “Reasons. Now focus on math.”
Childe narrows his eyes, “Says you, who doesn’t even have a calculator on the table?”
Venti smiles just as serenely, “Says me, math student extraordinaire.”
Cyno snorts, “Wanna hear a joke?”
Anything but maths, really, so Childe nods, “Sure.”
The rest of the table erupts into quiet groans at that though, Kaveh closing his eyes with a long-suffering sigh. Cyno clicks his tongue, “Why should you worry about the math teacher holding graph paper?”
“I don’t know, why?”
“Because she may be plotting something,” Cyno grins.
Kaveh drops his head into his hands. Venti suddenly looks very interested in whatever their math teacher is writing on the board. Childe just stares at Cyno blankly.
Cyno clears his throat, “You know, because, like, you plot a graph and can also plot a devious plan, and-”
“No, no,” Childe interrupts, “I got you the first time.”
“Oh,” Cyno blinks, “Oh, you didn’t laugh, so I thought-”
“Hahahahahahaha,” Childe instantly says.
“Don’t encourage him,” Kaveh hisses, “Or he’ll be going at it during the entirety of lunch, and archons know he’s insufferable . You’ll see”
“Oy,” Cyno protests at the same time as Childe asks, “I’ll see?”
Kaveh arches an eyebrow, “I assumed you’d be joining us for lunch? Unless you have another friend to join.”
Childe thinks of the only other person he knows in the school and makes a conscious effort to push Scaramouche out of his mind, “No- no, not at all! Thanks for taking me in.”
“Wanna hear-”
“No, Cyno, I do not want to hear a joke and neither does Childe,” Kaveh glares at him, “Anyway, you’ll meet Tighnari, and Haith- well, you’ve already met Haitham.”
“I didn’t think you’d be friends with him, given the way you interacted earlier,” Childe says.
Cyno guffaws, “Ah, you’d be surprised.” He wiggles his eyebrows at Childe, “they’re—quotation marks—not friends—quotation marks.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Venti inserts himself into the conversation again at that with a mischievous smile, “It means they’re fucking.”
“We are not fucking!” Kaveh protests loudly.
“Language, if you will,” Mr W. reprimands mildly.
“Sorry,” Kaveh mutters, “Why does everyone think we’re fucking?”
Cyno mutters something under his breath. Venti snorts. Childe purses his lips, replaying the earlier interaction in his head, and- okay, maybe there was some tension there. He could definitely see where these accusations were coming from, and they were certainly not as baseless as Kaveh thinks they are.
“They’re roommates,” Cyno adds, seeing Childe’s confusion, and Childe can’t help but wiggle his eyebrows at Kaveh too, “Oooooh. And how many beds are there?”
Kaveh scowls at him, “ Two .” and doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the lesson. It’s no matter, really, because Childe spends it staring at the hot redhead at Albedo’s table. He seems to have caught Childe a couple of times, and Childe tries his best at a sexy smirk, but only gets an unreadable frown in return.
It’s alright—most hot people are tsunderes anyway. The redhead had looked at him, which meant that he spent a couple of seconds on Ajax, and must’ve only looked away because he was embarrassed at being the object of Childe’s smouldering, sultry smile. Also, they were both redheads, even if the shade was different, so they’re basically meant for each other.
Childe can already see their future together: by the end of the month, the redhead will be irrevocably in love with Childe, and by the end of next month, he’ll have asked Childe out, and before the end of the year, they’ll get married, and by next year, they’ll have kids— nevermind biological constraints— and their kids will be beautiful little redheads too-
And oh my god, the beautiful redhead is answering a question, and his voice is almost as nice as Mr. Beauteous Voice from this morning, except it’s slightly raspier and that kind of makes it sexier, if that’s even possible , and Childe is just so in love! There hasn’t been a hot enough man around him for him to fall for in years.
So before the class ends, he grabs Venti’s wrist, asking him who the new love of his life is.
“Oh, that’s Diluc,” Venti says, “He’s an emo bitch.”
“Diluc,” Childe repeats slowly, trying not to reveal just how much he loved the sound of it rolling off his tongue.
“Diluc Ragnvindr,” Kaveh adds, “He owns, like, the biggest wine conglomerate in Mondstadt and topped the level in like six subjects last year.”
“And he’s hot,” Cyno says.
“What?” Venti whips around, “Seriously?”
“I’m not blind ,” Cyno rolls his eyes, “I’m pretty sure everyone in the school has had a Diluc Ragnvindr phase at least once. Before they realised he doesn’t respond properly when spoken to, of course.”
Childe half-expects Venti to speak up for his friend, but he should’ve known better. Venti only snorts, though, “Yeah, he’s rude like that. Not because he doesn’t know how to be nice, of course, he’s great at that. He just chooses to be a little bitch.”
Diluc, who’s currently packing up at the other table, gives Venti the most withering look Childe has ever seen (and that’s saying a lot, because he knows Scaramouche). Childe clears his throat, straightening up and angling his neck in such a way that makes his jawline pop.
As Diluc stalks over and physically removes Venti by force, Kaveh asks Childe if he has a crick in his neck. Embarrassed, Childe returns his head to its original resting position, hoping Diluc hadn’t noticed that little interaction.
Huh , Childe thinks , Diluc Ragnvindr. Rich, hot, intelligent, and in high demand. He’d be damned if he could find a more perfect man—who was clearly in love with him already. After all, there was no other reason he’d walk over to their table to remove Venti! Diluc just wanted to get closer to Childe and smell his sexy cologne!
Oh, Diluc Ragnvindr will be admitting his love for Childe in no time. Just watch .