[Childe x Zhongli] One Day You'll Love Me Again

CHAPTER 01: what do i call you (now)

! BEWARE: Takes place after Zhongli's (1+2) & Childe's (1) story quests !

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"So my currently eldest son in the house finally decided to stop moping and leave his room after all."

His mother's amused voice suddenly came from behind in the darkened room, startling him out of his unnecessarily deep and intense staring at the kitchen table's wooden structure before she approached one of the unoccupied chairs to make herself comfortable across from her offspring.

She softly tutted. "No, never mind, you you still look unhappy."

"I'm fine, just tired." Childe huffed out a short laugh, hoping she would let it go as he rapped his fingers against the structured surface of their worn and well loved family kitchen table, purchased many years even before his own birth. "Really, you worry too much."

Of course, the woman who birthed him only rose an unbelieving eyebrow—and coupled it with an unimpressed look while she was at it—as she wrapped her robe tighter around herself.

Understandably so.

The room was frigid, he belatedly realized.

Very much so, as he had not even noticed the fireplace going out even though the last bits of slightly milder autumn temperatures were approaching their inevitable end, too lost in his musings to notice the drop in temperature in the room or much of anything if he were to be honest.

Childe lifted his head to look outside the window, only the shine of the moon, reflected on the ice crystals covering the plane of glass greeted his sore eyes.

It was always freezing in Snezhnaya, the nation being decked in a coat of white all year long but soon even the waterway connecting the icy kingdom would freeze over so deeply, no ship would be able to safely pass the frozen depths.

Childe had missed the blindingly white snow and cruel temperatures of his home in Morepesok with a passion. Almost as much as his family.

When the frosty air had finally entered his expanding lungs—which soon had started to ache with that familiar, delicious burn—it had filled him with such elation, he immediately had broken out into an honestly excited grin that must've even reached his eyes as he had gripped the frozen railing of the ship taking him home.

Admittedly, the first thing to do so after that whole affair in Liyue had gone down.

A few days ago, after he had sent boxes of food and presents home, he had quickly packed up his lighter, summerly Fatui uniforms to instead don his much thicker, Snezhnayan winter wear in preparation for the drop in climate and boarded the first official Fatui ship after La Signora back to Snezhnaya.

His gaze had been stubbornly locked on the unruly sea ahead—his long and warm coat draped over his arm for the moment and a small bag with his sparse and little belongings on his shoulder as the morning wind had viciously whipped his hair into his eyes and face—he had quite literally left the balmy autumn air of Liyue Harbour behind as his stomach had churned with indescribably mixed feelings.

The Fatui vessel had been headed straight to the frosty palace of Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa, without any stops.

It had been better like this, he told himself.

Afterwards, he had been quick to make his way to his homey seaside village when his Archon had deemed their mission a success and dismissed them until further notice.

It surely hadn't been a mission he himself would've called such but he bit his tongue and departed for the next ship that same evening.

After all, he had promised Tonia that he would come home as soon as possible after his work in Liyue was done and he always kept his promises.