modernity - xiaoven

35.

(dontcha love that i hate writing venti's pov again? i don't either-)

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"why are all of the memes about guards about sex- i'm an asexual bard and i don't like this."

"it's dnd, venti. you literally just watched one where the barbarian managed to fuck a dragon."

"and?"

"you're biased."

"no, i'm a bard."

"just don't kill your phone. neither of us know the password."

"i have a feeling i know what it is."

"you need to use the code instead of your fingerprint sometimes."

"okay!"

it was surprising how hooked venti got onto the dnd memes, but xiao didn't mind. atleast he wasn't almost killing himself every ten minutes. [he'd almost fallen off the balcony, that xiao had to confine him to staying inside the hotel, or a foot away from the railing.]

"xiao? are you in there?"

"what."

"how did you and your universe's me, meet?"

"technically we became friends through a contest, but he, or you, helped me through a panic attack at the mall after the incident."

"incident?"

"aether's death."

.

..

...

"aether's dead...?" lumine choked, as xiao reached out to put his hand on her shoulder. she hadn't witnessed much of the abuse he'd gone through with the three, and yet she'd forgiven him.

"and it's my fault. i let them get to me."

"it's not your fault, xiao."

"xiao.

"xiao!"

"xiao!"

the girl's voice slowly turned into venti's, as the male was currently holding xiao in his arms.

"tell me everything, please."

xiao nodded, coming down from the spiral, leaning into him.

"when i was, seventeen, or sixteen, i was being manipulated by my childhood friends, you'd know them as ningguang, keqing, and ganyu. the last two did the worst, and they were also manipulating aether, and ningguang as well. ninggaung was only following them at the time, i don't remember why..."

he stopped speaking for a moment, before leaning into venti more as he continued, "aether was really into investigating haunted places, with our other friend hu tao. hu tao hadn't been around the past month, so the two, decided it was a good time to strike... i was wearing gloves, and given a knife and a mask. i'd... i'd stabbed aether to death that night, under the pretense that they would kill me if i didn't, and that my siblings would be proud."

"they threatened to kill you?!"

"yeah... i don't remember much else from that night, besides the fact that we returned to ganyu's place afterwards. and that i was being recorded, just so they could say i was the single one that was guilty."

"that's horrible."

"horrible, yes, and they're out of prison now, anyway."

"why were they released?"

"bail."

xiao sighed softly, before smiling slightly. "atleast they aren't bothering me." it was a blatant lie, but he wanted to calm venti's nerves.

"good."

"can we stop talking about this now?"

"yeah."

"back to dnd!"

"we can probably try to play a campaign one shot together, if you want to."

"let's do it!"