secret, [childe x reader]

1. "great fairy mountain"

The notes flow together like a sea of raindrops, and even though the electric keyboard you're playing doesn't have a sustain pedal, the little tune you accidentally conjured up is more than dreamy. You're absolutely immersed, melting into the music, improvising with the next chords taking shape inside your mind.

The build up is exhilarating, layers upon layers of dissonance entangled with consonance slowly leading up to the next resolution. Major 7th, extended to 9th, suspended 7th, why not add in a funky crunchy 11th, all culminating in-

Three loud knocks at the door.

Your playing halts, the notes cutting off abruptly, not giving any echo in the soundproofed room you're in. Hearing the door being opened behind you, you turn your head to meet the eyes of your very unwelcome intruder.

A carrot haired boy with dumb looking blue eyes. He has an auburn guitar case on his back, and is dressed in a white button up sparsely striped with black lines over a black turtleneck. He had on a red scarf. Indoors.

Your first thought is that he looks like the word "smosh" personified. Then, he has the audacity to open his mouth and start speaking.

"Look, I'd love to continue listening in to your jamming, sweetheart, but I've got my monthly evaluation REALLY soon and I really need this practice room. So you need to..." he gestures with both of his thumbs pointing over his shoulder, his head tilting backwards towards outside the room.

He whistles twice, in tandem with his thumbs and his head all doing a little double tilting motion, basically saying "get the fuck out" !

You grumbled silently to yourself as you reached your right hand over the instrument, pausing the recording that you were taking on your phone of your now-interrupted practice.

"By the way I did reserve this room, from 4pm to 5, and it's 4:23, so."

You suck in sharp breath as your eyes widen. Scrambling to pick up your phone from on top of the keyboard to check the time, which confirmed he wasn't lying. You hated when people leeched off of your reserved rooms, mentally cursing your own mindlessness as you hurry to apologize.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize-"

"Don't worry buddy, it's all good !" he grins, projecting way too much joy. You know you wouldn't even be close to smiling if some hog was as overtime as you are right now, so you waste no time picking yourself off the bench and starting to gather your things as quickly as possible. You hear him enter the room and start placing his things down. What a mess... 20 minutes of his practice, gone. You were still trying to shake away your guilty thoughts.

"Actually, nevermind. You can keep practicing," you look back up at him, who seems to be now checking the time again with his head lowered, "gotta blast. My evaluation's in 5 minutes."

You blink at him.

"It was nice listening to ya, happy practice !"

And with that, he picked up his guitar and swiftly left the room, the door not closing fully behind him.

Lowering your gaze, you notice that he'd left his scarf on the bench.

It is safe to say that the out of body experience you just non-consensually partook in cut off your flow, the remainder of your musical inspiration evaporating.

Picking up your things, (and seeing on the face of your phone that it was only 4:26pm still), you decide to head to the front office to drop off the weirdo's scarf at the lost and found.

The halls are pretty empty at this hour, all the staff and students preoccupied with one thing or another. As you make your way down the building, you muse on the realization that even though that orange haired trainee had his monthly evaluation at 4:30, he reserved a practice room from 4 to 5. And then proceeded to either 1) arrive late to the practice room by over 20 minutes, or 2) refrained from getting you out of the room, instead opting to eavesdrop on your playing for over 20 minutes. Also the fact that he said he had his evaluation "REALLY soon", which you now know meant "in literal minutes". You fail to come up with a way to process all that, so you don't.

To get to the front office, you need to pass the concert hall, which is where all the practical evaluations took place. Walking past the grand double doors, you catch a faint echo of acoustic guitar playing before turning the corner, finally reaching the door to the office. You knock twice before entering.

"Hello, Ganyu, just here to drop off something at the lost and found," you greet the secretary with a small wave as you approach the front desk. Her head pops up from behind the computer she's working at.

"Good afternoon," her voice is calming, soft. You have no idea how this woman is so patient with the amount of work she has. As you place the scarf on the counter, you notice a cup of qingxin flower tea on her desk, steam rising off of the hot drink, "I'm very glad you're here, since I had to call you down anyway, to give you some exciting news," she continues, "you've been nominated as one of the potential trainees who will get to debut next month."

You feel your eyebrows shoot up with surprise and disbelief. It isn't that you aren't confident in your abilities as a musician, but you acutely remember how badly your last monthly examination went, just a few days ago...

"You've done consistently well and deserve this very much, I give you my sincerest congratulations." she nods wholeheartedly.

Ganyu's words are so genuine that you almost believe her. Sure, you loved (most of) the music you made and are still very proud of your pieces, however consistency is something you're sure you lacked, your performances not even close to sounding as polished and emotive as your solo practices, your nerves taking over almost every time.

Before you can trap yourself in reliving all the stage fails and memory blanks you've had, someone enters the office.

"Ganyu-jiejie ! Have you seen my scarf ?"

-

end notes :

childe's outfit referenced from this artwork : https://twitter.com/Qiseki/status/1345636888535855105

"jiejie" is a chinese honorific for older friends/colleagues, its literal meaning being "older sister"