Stars of the "fake sky" [ •Xiaother Oneshots• ]

Matching hairpins - unintentionally? ☁️♦

Over the past few weeks, Aether has been wearing decorative hairpins around. Now, it's not like this is a problem, infact it's kind of cute. But, it still sparks the question of why it's started happening and when he got into hairpins? Like, for example, one day Ganyu spotted him with a star hairclip, and another time Keqing saw a seal-shaped clip on the end of his braid. It's actually become an office game for Ganyu, Yelan and Keqing to guess what hairpin they'll see Aether wearing next, as the blonde often dropped by to visit most mornings. Ganyu never usually participated in the "game" as she's far too busy, and was never particularly into that sort of stuff. Sometimes Yanfei even gets roped into joining in on the small game.

Where did he keep getting such intricately shaped hairpins? It was odd for someone like Aether, who didn't seem to be the type to wear such things.

It only got weirder when Hu Tao told Keqing that Xiao had been wearing those kind of hairpins on his belt. Well, would it even be called hairpins if you wore them in such a way? But anyways, Ganyu also once mentioned the fact that he's left his room with his hair held up by red X-shaped hairclips holding up his bangs. Xiao especially is not the type to wear cute hairpins, or hairpins in general, honestly. So that made it more suspicious.

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Aether looked down at the short white-haired girl who was calling his name. "Aether! Paimon has been calling your name for the past five minutes!!" Paimon shrieked, clearly upset at the fact that Aether has been unintentionally ignoring her for a while. "Oh - sorry, Paimon. What were you saying?" Aether hummed back to the shorter girl, visibly zoned out as he was decorating his partners hair with cute hairpins.

Paimon sighed, already done for the day with the disgusting behaviour from the two. Well, Xiao wasn't exactly participating in the actions, he was kinda just sitting there on his phone while Aether was messing with his hair. Only really Paimon and Zhongli have seen this sight, as it happens in the early mornings and in Xiao's and/or Aether's bedroom.

"Paimon was just telling you about the tasks that we've been given for the day! Archons, do you even listen to Paimon when Paimon talks?!" "Heh.. sorry, Paimon, I'll listen now." Aether replied sheepishly, now that he was done playing with the ravenette's fluffy hair.

"Ughh! Finally, now -"

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Now that it was around the afternoon, Xiao finally made an appearance, only now leaving his room when most of the people occupying his house were busy. Ganyu was the only one home currently, but Xiao and her never really talked anyways. But, Ganyu decided to ask Xiao about the hairpins today as she's been very curious for the past few weeks, when they first started appearing.

"Um.. Xiao, I have a question that I'd like to ask you, if that's alright?" Ganyu asked hesitantly, as Xiao entered the living room with a cold drink in his hand, after leaving the kitchen. "Hm? Sure. Make it quick." Xiao nodded, turning off his phone and putting it in one of the pockets of his baggy jeans. "So, for the past few weeks I've noticed that you and Aether have been wearing somewhat matching hairpins - I wanted to know if this was intentional?" Ganyu explained, adding a moment later; "Yelan, Keqing and Hu Tao also wanted to know..." For a few seconds there was a sort of silence, before Xiao spoke up again.

"What hairpins?" He asked, confused as he pulled out his phone to look in the camera. "..Oh. Ah." He sighed, taking the hairpins out of his dark-teal hair.

".. Were you not aware of the decorations?" Ganyu asked, tilting her head a little to the side in confusion. "No, I wasn't. It was probably Aether. He always asks to play with my hair." "Oh! I see, thank you for answering my question." She nodded, her voice willed with gratitude as she left Xiao to his own thoughts, assuming he wouldn't particularly like the presence of another person.