𝙍𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 [𝘼𝙐 𝙕𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙘𝙝𝙞 +18]

Epilogue

Zhongli leaned back in the seat, taking a deep breath and placing his hands on the steering wheel, looking at his thigh, which sometimes still ached from the gunshot even though six months had passed. The wounds Rosaria did him that night had healed, leaving marks on his skin, a permanent reminder of what had happened. The ones on his face and shoulder were not that visible because they were the slightest, but on his hand, thigh, and belly those marks could be seen quite easily. Although the one on his belly was more visible because of the surgery than because of the wound itself.

It had been six long months, many things had happened. He had already quit working at the FBI, just like Hu Tao. They were both able to get jobs at a funeral parlor, he was there more as a consultant since most of the time he was writing for the Yae publishing house. Yes, in the end, they ended up making public the whole truth about what happened, the corruption of the FBI, the involvement of innocent people, the concealment of evidence, the role of the Church... Everything ended up coming to light.

Zhongli wrote everything himself, anonymously, and changed the names of the people involved —except for Rosaria—. That was earning him a living, and he was quite satisfied with how things were going for him. He was making a little more money than he was getting at the FBI, and the working conditions were much better.

What he couldn't be too happy about was how Childe was doing. In those six months he hadn't woken up from the coma, he didn't give any sign of consciousness. By now Zhongli had begun to think that Childe was not going to wake up again, but he had seen cases of people who spent years in a coma only to wake up out of the blue. Childe had survived a gunshot to the head, why couldn't something as incredible as that happen again? He wasn't going to spend his whole life like that, was he? No way could happen. Sometimes the doctors had dropped the possibility of disconnecting him, saying it subtly and indirectly. Obviously, Zhongli had realized those assumptions, and he flatly refused that possibility. He couldn't let that happen, Childe had to wake up. He had to do it...

Childe's family hadn't shown up again either, and Zhongli didn't want to go looking for them either. If they hadn't shown interest again, it's because they weren't interested in Childe. It still broke his heart that he was going to have to tell Childe what had happened, and a part of him thought it would be much better if he didn't. But that would be lying to him, and enough lies Childe had had to put up with for him to do it too. It was better that he lived with the harsh reality instead of a white lie. Childe had been going out of his way for his family, thinking they were under menace. How was he going to react when he learned the truth?

Zhongli had thought several times how lucky and unlucky Childe was at the same time. Horrible things had happened to him, but the universe seemed hell-bent on keeping him alive. It wasn't the first time he thought so, to tell the truth. But now it was different, it seemed more like a sentence to continue suffering, although now he was only submerged in an endless dream, far from reality, of Zhongli.

He sighed, starting the car to head to the hospital.

—

Zhongli parked the car, taking out the key once he stopped the engine to open the door. He had gotten used to doing that walk for the last three months as if the few days before he was hospitalized for two weeks hadn't been enough. But whether he wanted it or not, it had become part of his routine. He wished he didn't have to do that, that one day he could walk out of the hospital with Childe, and that whole cycle would stop... But it hadn't happened. Childe was still in a coma that never seemed to end, like a nightmare. No, even worse. The nightmares were unreal something that can be easily awakened from, but what Childe was experiencing was something endless, the only similarity was the agony that both situations shared.

Zhongli walked towards the building, entering through the glass doors, seeing that today seemed to be a quiet day, with hardly any people waiting at the machines to get a shift ticket. He waved to the people at the front desk, passing through the hallway that led to the elevators. The hospital workers had grown accustomed to his daily visits, so he no longer had to call the front desk each time—they logged him directly into the computer as he went to visit Childe.