For you (Xiaother Winter Special)

Week 5

It took 4 weeks. 28 days. 672 hours. That was what it took for Aether and Xiao to become friends, in fact, such good friends that Xiao has been seen by students smiling and laughing with Aether during the week. It's shocking, I know; I guess it takes a lot to earn his trust. Sure, it had taken away a lot of time from seeing his other friends, but they probably didn't even notice anything. Right?

"Aether! Where have you been for the past 7 days?" Hu Tao scolded at him. "I couldn't find you at lunch, after school, or anywhere! And you didn't pick up your phone or answer any of my texts! It's only a miracle that I found you in the hallway!"

"Yeah, it's not cool. We all hung out the other day and you were the only one who wasn't there." Childe added on. Okay, maybe he was unavailable for a little longer than he thought he was.

"Really? Uh, sorry I guess.."

"Sorry is not gonna cut it! What have you been doing all this time anyway? Jerking o-

"Shh! There are people around us, everyone can hear you!" It was rare to see Tao angry, but when she was angry, she was angry. The people passing by looked at the three weirdly but she refused to back down - Aether practically had to drag her mouth off before she said something bad.

Tao huffed in annoyance. "Well? Are you gonna explain why you ghosted your friends or go around the school with that loner?" Ah. So she knew about Xiao. Not that Aether thought he was a loner, of course. It took him a moment to process who it was.

"Who?"

"Don't act like you don't know who! It's that quiet kid! Showel or Xiao or whatever you wanna call him!" In his opinion, the quiet kid was a better title than the loner.

"Oh! Xiao? This is about him? He's just a new friend I started hanging out with."

Childe groaned. "Look, you're allowed to have your own friends but you can't be seen hanging out with him. It would ruin our reputation! And just because you have other friends doesn't mean you can quit hanging out with us." Part of what he said was true, one new friend doesn't mean you have to treat everyone else like garbage. The other half? That's a different story.
"You can't just ghost us for a week and then expect everything to be fine. Not how it works dude."

He had to admit, they had a point. "You guys are right. I'm sorry, I won't ignore you guys again." Hu Tao gave him 'the look'.
"I mean it, Tao. I promise." They both pulled themselves into a short hug before walking to class. It didn't matter if they ran or crawled there; they would've been severely late either way. Childe grabbed Aether's shoulder as he walked away.

"Hey, that's not the end of it you know! You gotta make sure that you aren't seen with that guy again, alright? We don't want people to know that you and him are friends. You've done enough damage already and people are questioning how you guys know each other."

"...Okay." It didn't mean that they couldn't hang out anymore, just not in broad daylight. He continued walking again and the day was over.

Reputation. Of course, everything was about reputation. If all of the 6 (Venti, Yanfei, Scaramouche, Childe, Ganyu, Aether) have something in common, it's the fact that they all have a reputation. They have to stick together. They have to be popular. They have to put up with the expectations. They had climbed so high up the social ladder; why fall back down? You need to keep yourself in line. Please the crowd, keep everyone happy. They had to do this. They need to do this. Aether needs to do this. Keep climbing. Stay at the top. Don't fall. The air pressure only gets higher the more you climb - do you really think that's a reason to stop? Higher. Higher. Higher. Don't slip. Don't slip. Don't slip. Don't slip. Don't-