modernity - xiaoven

10.

next chapter is the ChiLI chapter.

updating early bc i got a phone. 

ALSO CHECK THE NOTES CHAPTER EVERY SO OFTEN!!! I ADD TO IT AS I WRITE.

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once he'd eaten, and cleaned up after himself, xiao ended up laying in bed to attempt to sleep. keyword attempt. of course, he hadn't managed to fall asleep, so he just laid there idly, staring up at the ceiling.

staring into pure nothingness, alone with his thoughts. he did this often, often enough that it had become almost second nature to try and recognize the different parts of his ceiling. like the small piece of tape that once held a dream catcher, or the water stain from when they'd first moved in.

it was all memorized, burned into his memory. one time, when he'd done this in a different room, he'd been shocked that it wasn't all there. there was no piece of tape, or water stain. there was just plain white ceiling.

though, currently, staring at the ceiling was giving him a headache, for whatever reason. it was probably the blinding white of it, but he hadn't thought of that at the moment, so he just decided to roll over and stare at his sheets instead.

which also didn't help his headache. it actually ended up making it worse, so he sat up with a slight groan. pressing a hand to his head, xiao glanced over at his alarm clock, realizing it was only 8:30. which meant that he'd been staring at the ceiling for two hours, and that was the reason for his headache.

shakily standing up, despite being practically unable to handle it, he left his room and went to grab a glass of water. luckily, zhongli still wasn't home, so he wasn't going to be bothered with the headache. by bothered, he'd be probably be forced to lay in bed until zhongli's sure he isn't sick.

and, xiao may like spending time alone in his room, but he doesn't only lay in bed for hours. [unlike he just was. but that's because he was bored and didn't know what to do.] he actually is kind of productive. he typically has a lot of freetime, as he doesn't leave the house or go to certain places, out of pure fear. if they found him, he doesn't know what would happen. it was his fault for listening to them, and his luck that no evidence was found against him.

shaking his head slightly, and setting the glass in the sink, xiao left the kitchen and went to his room again. he didn't need to worry his father, because normally he'd end up drinking a water bottle in his room. especially if he had a headache.

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grabbing his phone, xiao sighed at the sheer amount of notifications. he'd been added to a groupchat, one named [barbie toes' friends]. he was lucky it wasn't an unknown number, he didn't need to change numbers again, but he was also extremely lucky that they weren't in the chat either. deciding to start at the point he'd been added, he started to read through the messages.

[barbie toes' friends]

v: i added xiao! [an hour ago]

k: helo!

a: kaeya get your ass home.

a: and hello, xiao. [fourty-five minutes ago.]

l: why hello, dear. [thirty minutes ago]

j: hi.

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scrolling through the hellos, and introductions that he'd read later, he noticed the true source of the spamming.

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[barbie toes' friends.]

v: i fucked up [10 minutes ago]