After Last Night | Chilumi

Chapter 10: A warm hug

Lumine

"Young lady... Lumine..."

The snap of her fingers in front of me woke me from the trance I had put myself into. Xianyun cleared her throat, forcing me to divert my attention to her. I quickly composed myself at my desk and touched my head, making sure I wasn't disheveled.

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going to lunch? It's already past one," she asked.

I searched my pockets for my phone and checked the time when she brought the word "lunch" into the conversation. 1:25 PM. Viator's break had started twenty-five minutes ago, and I was still daydreaming at my desk like an idiot. I nodded and forced a smile, casual enough not to be invaded by more questions from my boss.

"Yes, sorry... I'll just finish a few things before I go."

Xianyun rolled her eyes and nodded as well. The persistent clack of her high heels on the floor faded away as she walked toward the elevator before the doors closed. I sighed deeply once I managed to wake up my mind out of the hell my thoughts had become lately: I had a thousand things to think about, things I struggled to ignore and pretend didn't exist, but the weight of my decisions still made me nauseous, even at the most inopportune moments.

Hiding the discomfort and cravings of pregnancy wouldn't have been such a difficult task if it weren't for the fact that my own uncertainty would often worsen the nausea that appeared in the middle of my workday. Sometimes I could tolerate it and continue with my work, making a great effort to smile and use the excuse that "I ate too badly last night"; other times I would sneak into the bathrooms and let everything out, including the heaviness and regret from the events of the past few weeks. Talking to Uncle Zhongli made me feel better, but it didn't solve anything, as the world was still cried out to me for a solution, an answer, a move, even a step in any direction. Backward, forward, or to the side. I had to make a decision: keep it, get rid of it, talk to Childe, ignore or avoid him, or blatantly lie to him for the rest of my life. I wished I didn't have to do any of them. I could ignore Childe, hide, never cross paths with him again, but the child in my womb would still be there no matter how much I wanted to delegate the decision to someone else. Any option would bury me in the deepest layer of the earth and cut off my air the moment I tried to do anything to stop the storm coming my way. The fleeting idea of simply disappearing sometimes crossed every fiber of my brain, but it always ended up in the trash.

When I finally decided to get up from my chair to go to the cafeteria and find something light to eat, I felt strange. I looked at my bare feet, covered only by a thin layer of nylon stockings. I held onto the desk and tried to put on my high heels to get out of there. They didn't look bad on me, in fact, I thought I could look good in tight clothes, but for how much longer would that be this way?

Inevitably, I thought about what would happen if I decided to keep it. Those feet would swell, I would stop seeing them and at some point in my life. I would have a belly so big it would be impossible to hide. I would set aside my professional uniform and be forced to wear larger, perhaps more comfortable, clothes. Bittersweet sensations were merging within me, making it no easier to see the positive and negative aspects of my situation. Each aspect was both good and bad at the same time. Satisfying and exciting; lukewarm and despairing.

I walked down the empty hallway of Viator's third floor. No one was there, just me, the only idiot who used lunchtime to keep martyring herself instead of relaxing, eating, and taking a break from a pair of painful heels. The phone on my desk stopped me. "Who the fuck is bothering me during lunch?" I rolled my eyes and wondered if it would be a crime to pretend I never heard that call. It had been over twenty-five minutes since the break had started; I wasn't supposed to be at my desk. "They can go to hell," I said to myself.