★ Bound by Contract ★

Chapter Two - caretaker

Tartaglia had learned that the person's name was "Zhongli." A quite unusual name, in his opinion, but he wouldn't say anything.
It had only been a day since he took him in, and he was already tired and ready to get back to work.
"Zhongli," he murmured, looking up at him from the food the other had made. Zhongli looked back at him. "Yes?"
"When do you think I'll be able to get back to work?" He asked. He doubted he'd receive an actual answer, instead probably just a lecture. But he went for it anyway.
Zhongli sighed. "Childe, not any time soon. You were terribly injured," he leaned over, lifted up childe's shirt, and pointed at the painfully obvious gash on his ribs, bandaged up. "Look."
"Ok, but I wanna get back to work," childe hissed, looking back up at him and pulling down his shirt. "I'm bored." He whined.
"Well you aren't going to, at least not for now." Zhongli scolded.
They both sighed simultaneously and leaned back in their chairs. "Well what in the meantime then, father?" Childe asked in a sarcastic, mocking tone.
Zhongli looked at him in surprise, his eyes slightly wide, like we was caught off-guard, never heard the word before. His face flushed, a slight pink toning his cheeks. The hell? Was he THAT shocked?
"Don't call me that." He quickly spat, looking childe dead in the eye. Honestly, with how injured and weak he felt, the harsh tone was almost enough to make him tear up. He flinched, surprised at the mood switch all of a sudden. "What?..I was just joking, Zhongli."
The latter just closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again and looking away. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Excuse me." He got up from the table, walking back to the room he sleeps in.
"What the hell?" Childe murmured. He was surprised, Zhongli didn't seem like the type to get angrily easily, so what was that..? He sighed and summed it up to him perhaps just being tired, probably from some sort of fight, or maybe from the fight with that ruin guard that made childe come damn near close to death.
It wasn't uncommon, in his work field, for childe to brush against the face of death. Being in the fatui wasn't easy, of course. He knew this risk when he joined, and still took it. But something seemed..off. About this injury. It wasn't healing easily. Usually, a gash like this would've been hurting a lot less after a night of sleep, but it hadn't subsided at all. Though, he did notice upon using elemental sight before going in for the fight with the ruin guard, it's energy seemed odd. It had a slight purple tint to it? As if it was electrocuted beforehand. He shrugged it off at first, but now that he thought of it more, it seemed strange. He'd never seen anything like that before, the slight purple tint. Letting out a huff of frustration with the entire situation, he placed the bowl he was eating out of in the sink and slumped back into the room he was staying in, shutting the door behind him.