𝙨𝒕𝙖𝒓𝙙𝒐𝙢'𝙨 𝙨𝒆𝙘𝒓𝙚𝒕 - 𝐥𝐲𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐱 𝐟em! 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

chapter 12 - intermission

Snow fell over Fontaine, making the City of Fontaine look more like a Christmas-themed village than a city.

Y/n peeked out her window and sighed. Winter days looked nice with snow, but it had snowed so much that it was difficult to even want to go outside. Her short-haired white cat, Glace, stared out the window animatedly, swinging her long tail back and forth.

"Meow," Glace turned her sharp blue eyes to y/n.

"Trust me, you don't want to go outside right now, Glace," y/n responded before squinting her eyes, "you've never even wanted to go outside. What's with you wanting to do something you've never done for the first time in nine years at the most inconvenient time?"

"...Mew."

Y/n sighed again. Her hands were freezing, and she had wanted to go to the book store to purchase a new murder mystery novel.

Guess that ship had sailed. At least she had done the Christmas shopping the day before.

Lyney's—Idol Lyney's—concert was in three days, and, though she would never admit it, she was losing sleep out of excitement. She had actually never seen him in person before, courtesy of bad timing and unavailability. Once the concert had taken place the same time y/n's family left to Inazuma for vacation. Yeah. Really bad timing.

Lyney—nerd Lyney—had also been extremely busy for the past week. He hardly even got the chance to answer his phone, yet he still apologized. Y/n had mentioned that it was totally fine and not his fault. How could working at bookstore be so demanding, anyway? She should visit sometime...

The first semester was over—finally—and y/n could now spend more time practicing. However, in order to practice her violin, her hands had to be warm enough to have circulation and, well, move and function.

She started the kitchen sink, and turned the temperature up to the hottest possible setting, as to warm up the water faster. Still, it needed three full minutes to warm completely.

"Oh are you practicing?" Her mother entered the doorway of the kitchen.

"Yeah," y/n sighed for the umpteenth time. "I just need to warm up my hands. They're freezing right now."

Her mom nodded sympathetically. She noticed the setting of the faucet. "Don't burn yourself!"

"I'm not gonna—" y/n seemingly jinxed it as the water became too hot. She turned the temperature down, "—burn myself." She jerked her hand away from the water.

Her mom raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Mkay..."

*

Y/n rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was the third time in twenty minutes that she had to drench her hands in hot water, otherwise they would be moving in slow-motion.

After a short snack break, she returned to her violin, hoping that the break would magically make her gain skill.

She stared at the sheet music, and tried to muster as much muscle memory and warmth as she could before setting her fingers into motion again.

She broke the music down into sections and focused on whichever section had the most mistakes.

Y/n would occasionally mess up on a part she thought she knew, and then squint her eyes, pretending to have a hard time reading the music.

Classic, she could practically hear Lyney's voice in her head.

Her phone rang, pulling her out of her focused demeanor.

Speak of the devil. "Hey, Lyney! Is work finally calming down?"

"Work? Ah, yes, work. Yeah we've calmed down quite a bit. I'm on my lunch break. How's your day? You're not spending Christmas break worrying about the next semester, right?"

"No, uh...of course not. My day's been good. I practiced a little. How's your day?"

"Pretty good. My boss," he coughed, as if to make a point to someone nearby, "is being a little difficult."

She stifled a laugh. "Have you seen how much it's snowed?"

There was shuffling on the other line of the phone, and the sound of a curtain being pulled away. "Well. That's certainly a good amount of snow—dear Archons!"

"Do you have jackets, gloves, and everything?"

"Yes, I'll be fine. Please don't worry at all about me."

*

Lyney paced back and forth on stage, waiting for Lynette to come back from the bathroom so that they could keep rehearsing.

He felt sweat drip down his forehead (gross), and his muscles screamed at him to take a proper break. He felt exhausted, and thinking about having to trudge through the snow on the way back home made his knees weak from exhaustion already.

He rubbed his forehead, freed from the glasses that distorted his appearance (and his potential, according to Childe). 

"Lyney, Lynette's returned. Let's begin."

I want to put on the best performance possible, just for her, his own voice echoed in his ears. At the thought of somebody, his cheeks flushed, and it wasn't from exhaustion.

"Absolutely," he steeled himself and his resolve, "let's begin again from the top of the set list."