Xingyun Oneshots

88 - Falling Fast

Xingqiu's read hundreds, maybe even thousands of books, to determine that he's noticed some patterns.

After a certain period of time, he'll find that a few books he's read have had the same lessons to be learned, and when he does, he always takes it seriously, as is his chivalric code.

Often, books will advice him to help the weak, or be a kind person. Other times, they'll tell him to use his manners and be grateful. He's always taken these to heart, and every time he saw a new pattern and learned a new lesson, he did well to take it to heart.

Or so he tried, anyways.

He had been thumbing through the pages of a new release, eager to sit down and devour it like any other, when a new pattern popped out at him. This one, however, was different.

It wasn't about manners, or being nice, or helping others, or any other sort of moral that one should internalize.

This one was about a subject he was not well inept in, and one that stumped him well to no end to the point he was loosing sleep over it.

The lesson that he'd found being repeated this time went as followed:

"Don't fall in love fast."

The first time he'd read it, he felt an uneasy turn in his stomach, and he felt his face getting hot rereading it over a few more times and really thinking on it.

In theory, it sounded easy enough, since he'd never even liked anyone before.

But when he really stopped to think about it, all of that kinda went down the drain when Chongyun waltzed into his life and made himself comfortable right by his side.

Recently, without a shadow of a doubt, he'd managed to sweep Xingqiu right off his feet and make his heart pound harder than ever before just from a smile, and Xingqiu doubted he even knew it.

That was the worst part, really.

He realized that he hadn't followed unlike the rest, and that he'd fallen before he'd even had a chance to catch himself - not like he minded that Chongyun had caught him, but he'd done so with careful words and full heart and Xingqiu could hardly say a thing when he was gazing up into his eyes.

It wasn't like he could just go back in time and stop it from happening, because even if he could, he didn't even know how it happened, because it just sort of did.

One second, he was just talking to Chongyun, and then all of a sudden his chest felt all warm and like there were butterflies doing flips in his stomach when Chongyun gave him a rare smile and the purest of intentions. 

Ever since then, Xingqiu had kinda just acknowledged that he felt different about Chongyun, but he didn't really know how different. Not until now, anyways.

He closes his book with a deep frown and sets it aside, raising from his seat and heading for the door to go find Chongyun. Hopefully, he was going to nip this in the bud while it was still possible.

If he were able to internalize all the other morals, certainly he'd have no problem with this one.

-

"Oh, hi Xingqiu. I didn't know you were coming to train with me today."

Chongyun looks up and waves to Xingqiu, who goes to sit in the shade with him and sit neat and tidily so a not to dirty his overcoat.

"It wasn't on my agenda. Actually, I had something else that brought me here." He says confidently, smoothing out his shorts before turning to look Chongyun in the eye. Immediately he can feel the butterflies waking up and starting to flap around, but he ignores them.