You've begun to feel like home. Xiao x Aether.

Qingxin flower.

- Do you want to go to the Lantern rite with me? No, too informal. I would be delighted to accompany you to the Lantern Rite this year. No, no, no, not right. – Aether stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room at Wangshu Inn, talking to himself. It had been already couple of hours of him asking the same question to his reflection, and the more he thought about the proper way of saying the words, the more lost he seemed. – Argh, c'mon Aether, you've already done that many times before. – he growled and slammed the palm of his hand on the forehead. Thankfully, it appeared that the Yaksha wouldn't appear anytime soon, especially after he disappeared so suddenly in the middle of their commission.

Aether looked at himself again, tracing the edges of his face with the penetrating eyes, and, either from the long time he was staring at himself, either from the fruitless time he spent trying to come up with the proper question, his figure looked so miserable and pathetic.

"Paimon, where are you in the situations like this?!" – the boy thought sadly, cursing himself for asking her to arrive only at the Lantern Rite instead of now. at that point, there was no more doubt that the blond should take a break and distract himself – so, he took his backpack and left the room not yet knowing where he might go.

The evening was rather bright, the stars were already glowing in the sky and the moon was full, so that almost every detail of the land around Aether was clear visible. The boy definitely didn't want to travel to the city, as it most likely going to make him remember about asking the Yaksha over again, and that was something the blond would want to isolate his mind from at least for a couple hours. He decided to travel to the west of Liyue land, to the Mingyun Village – there usually were many hilichurls and a good old fight is exactly that Aether needed that moment. However, the plan to pay close attention to the road to the village wasn't successful in helping the traveler to distract himself from his thoughts – seemed like the land he was on right in this moment itself didn't want the boy to forget about the Adeptus. Aether noticed the Cor Lapis stones near the main road and stopped to admire the soft shine from them.

"Just like his eyes – rigid, yet lonely. And beautiful, so beautiful... - Aether caught himself on imagining Xiao's figure yet again and shook his head for the thoughts to leave his mind. – focus, I need to focus." – he almost rushed away from the Cor Lapis, as if they were somewhat a danger to him, as if the more he stared at them, the more trapped he felt.

Thankfully, Liyue's nature stopped playing tricks on his mind for the rest of the road, up to the broken bridge on the way to the village, or so Aether thought. Slowly crossing the bridge, Aether looked at the flock of birds, which were casually drinking water while sitting on one of the broken beams – one of them turned to face Aether surprised by a sudden appearance of the human. Aether met its eyes, smiled, and lifted his hands in defending pose, gesturing that he didn't want to disturb them.

"It looks exactly like the bird I met when I was going to..." – traveler shook his head once again and cursed out loud, which made the scared birds to immediately fly away. – No, no, no! Hilichurls, I must fight some hilichurls!" – yet another reminder made his heart remember about Xiao, and for some reason, the feeling of uneasiness grew larger inside of him. Aether did not know what to do with it, nor could he understand the reason behind it – maybe it was due to the nervousness of asking the dark-haired to meet him at the Lantern Rite, or maybe it was the realization that their meeting at the festival would not change anything. Of course, Xiao grew more friendly towards the other, started sharing and expressing his thoughts more often, accompanied him to do commissions during the day and even met with him in the evenings sometimes. But that probably was just the fact that the Yaksha grew close to him, that they became good friends, and nothing more. Aether didn't like to think about it too much – it was hard, heartbreaking to admit the fact that the other didn't feel the same way and probably never would. The fatal to Aether's fate words, which Xiao said long time ago, were torturing the blonde's mind: "I am not capable of feeling nor experience human feelings. There is no purpose in trivial mortal emotions". God, how much did he hate this awful feeling of feebleness to do anything to change it – and how could he if that was in Xiao's nature? Nevertheless, Aether could not change his lawless heart, therefore, he decided to cherish the moments spent together while neglecting his feelings and avoiding his temptations. He convinced himself that that was the only true thing that mattered – their friendship, and traveler would do anything to save it and preserve it 'till the end of his life.

As he entered the village, Aether stopped, confused by no one's presence nearby. Usually, this area would be filled with monsters, especially simple hilichurls, but for some reason today this was not the case, at least for the area Aether was looking at that moment. he made his way to the camp located to the north of the village and spotted some movements with the corner of his eye – as he quickly turned around, he saw several hilichurls sleeping on the ground near the campfire.

"Well, that is something to start with" – Aether finally cheered up and drew his sword ready for the battle. The hilichurls heard the sudden noise and quickly stood up prepared to fight the intruder.

The fight could be hardly called a battle – after several minutes, the poor creatures were already lying on the ground lifeless, and Aether was standing beside them and wiping of the blood from his clothes. It was not as difficult as he used to, however, coming here and fighting with monsters did its job – it distracted the blond from constantly thinking of the Adeptus. Excited for the new challenge, Aether decided to climb up the mountain to scan the area from above and maybe his eyes would notice a Mitachurl or something more dangerous, a Lawachurl perhaps.

Traveler carefully climbed up the mountain, using the protruding stones as a support for both legs and arms. Panting, Aether reached the peak of the mountain and sat down to catch his breath for a couple of seconds. He put down his sword on the grass nearby and leaned on his arms as he put them behind his back.

"The moon is truly miraculous tonight." – Aether thought as he looked up in the sky. The night was indeed the pleasant one – it wasn't very cold due to the time of the year, moreover, the breeze blew from the sea near Mingyun Village, and it gave a pleasant cooling effect to boy's face, which was overheated from previous climbing and fighting. The stars were shining as bright as ever and the blond could even recognize some of the constellations Mona had shown him before – the Viator one close to the Alatus Nemeseos. They were practically overlapping each other, fighting for space in the sky above. – "Someday I'll have to ask Mona about their meaning..." – the boy thought peacfully. Somehow, the nature, which previously was tormenting Aether, messing up with his thoughts and playing games with his imagination, now was calming him down.

After sitting there for what felt like seconds, but by the position of the moon was more like half of the hour, Aether decided not to continue his plan and return back to Wangshu Inn. He stood up and stretched his hand to take the sword from the ground. That moment, something small and white caught the eyes of the traveler – there was a tiny Qingxin flower growing near the sword. Just looking at it made Aether remember how the Yaksha mentioned how he liked it, well, not "liked" exactly, but rather "endured its appearance". Without thinking, the boy took his sword and carefully cut the stem to take the flower with him, then, he realized, that there were actually more of them at the top of the nearby mountain, so he ran there immediately. After a couple of minutes, Aether was holding a bouquet of fresh Qingxin flowers in his hand. Their small and tender petals were so soft to touch, that the second the boy took of his glove, he smiled from feeling them caress his skin. The smell was nice as well – heady, sweet like honey and fresh like the sea. It was understandable why the Yaksha liked them most out of all flowers. Admiring their beauty, Aether realized something out of nowhere, pulled out the hand with the flowers in front of him, pretending like the other person was standing there.

- Xiao, would you join me for the Lantern Rite? – he said confidently. Somehow, now the words fell into place and there was no hesitation about formulating them better. It was simple, and straightforward, just how Xiao liked it, without any pathos or uncertainty behind the key meaning. Aether's eyes brightened up as he finally was ready to ask the dark-haired to go with him to the festival. It was time to return back to Wangshu Inn and wait for the Yaksha to come back.