a thousand paper cranes - xiaoven au short

.chp3.

xiao springs awake, the dream lingering in his mind. dreams were supposedly impossible to remember , so why was this one lingering in his mind?

"free me...."

shaking his head , he crawls out of bed and gets ready for the day. as he brushes his hair , he decides to tie two braids and combines it into a ponytail. grabbing his bag , he prepares to step out of the house when he suddenly remembers something.

"oh.. today's a sunday.."

heading back in , he throws his bag aside and sits down on the couch. pulling out his phone , he decides to call ganyu to have her help out.

"hey ganyu , can you come over ?"

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"mm yeah , i need your help with the cranes."

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"yeah , see you soon."

hanging up , xiao pulls out two packs of origami papers and starts folding. after about 30 , the doorbell rings , and xiao drops the halfway done crane on the table. "ganyu , hello." xiao smiles. ganyu bows her head and steps in the house. putting down her bag , she sits at the table and gets to work. together , the both of them start folding in silence.

"hey , xiao. how's venti these days ?" ganyu asks softly , not wanting to upset xiao. "hmm.. he's doing fine , i suppose. just like the past 2 years , not much has changed."  xiao smiles hesitantly, sighing.

after a while , they finish all 400 pieces of paper. as soon as they finish the last ones ,xiao stands up. "hey , ganyu , i'm going to go grab the paper bag for the cranes , feel free to look around." and right after that , xiao goes up the stairs to his room.

ganyu , who rarely has ever been invited in , decides to look around the fully stacked shelves. running her finger against the spines of various books ,she stops at a photo album. pulling it out , she carefully opens it to not damage the album in any way. as she flips , she smiles at the pictures of younger xiao , as well as pictures of venti and xiao on dates together. the photos' were very obviously taken with a disposable camera , dates dating back to at least 3 years.

staring at a picture of venti posing with an asleep xiao, his face drawn on with a black marker. she laughs , and right at that moment , xiao comes down the stairs and notices ganyu laughing at the photo. " what's so funny ?" he asks.

turning the album towards him , ganyu points at the photo she was looking at. smiling , xiao walks towards ganyu and takes the album from her hands. softly laughing , he explains the story behind the photo.

.

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uncapping the marker , venti laughs evilly. xiao was asleep , and he had wanted to take revenge ever since xiao had eaten the apple pie he was specially saving for dessert.  carefully , he approaches xiao , who was fast asleep on the couch.

"hehe, payback." grinning , he drew whiskers and two circles around his eyes. "i should take a picture.. blackmail." capping the marker , he runs to find their disposable camera. turning the camera towards him and an asleep xiao , he holds up a peace sign. "cheese!!!" 

snap!

the shutter goes off , stirring xiao a little. quickly backing off , venti prepares to go to the photo store to get the film developed.

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"heh. he was still super pissed , so i got him pie as compensation."

laughing ,he looks at the photo , his eyes tearing up.

"i'd do anything to let him be able to do this again."