The Spark [Xiao x Aether]

Freedom IV

Xiao slowly started to regain his consciousness. He opened his eyes to find himself laying alone in the bed, his partner also seemed to have gone out of the apartment, he couldn't feel the boy's presence anywhere near. Everything was so quiet. The Adeptus started to wander around the room with his eyes, he spotted a calender which Aether kept to be able to tell what day it was, seeing how many days have been crossed out, he realized that he had been asleep for two whole weeks. That's right not one night, but fourteen days and fourteen nights.

He sighed and rolled over to the other side of the bed, attempting to fall asleep again. Even after such long sleep he still felt exhausted. The boy hadn't had any dreams, at least none that he could remember. All he knew was that he felt way more relaxed than before. The eyebags under his eyes were gone and his entire body didn't feel like a heavy weight anymore.

After realizing he couldn't sleep anymore and was well rested, he rubbed his eyes and got up. The traveler's stuff were still laying around the room so he wasn't gone. That was a relief. The only problem was where could he have gone off to? There were no notes left for the Yaksha to read so he probably wasn't much far away from the hotel.

While walking around the apartment, he decided to look at himself in the mirror for quite some time. He wanted to know if his eyes were still as dull as his boyfriend described them to be.

As soon as he saw his reflexion he immediately noticed one thing. His eyeliner was cleaned off, there were no stains like he expected. The blonde boy was definitely the one behind that. But what surprised him even more was that the cleaning procedure hadn't woken him up. Xiao wasn't a heavy sleeper, any slight noise could wake him up.

It seemed like he really managed to get some good rest.

While observing his own body in the mirror image, he noticed that the window in the apartment suddenly got opened by the wind. It wasn't any kind of wind, but some strong wind.

He walked over to it and closed it, he complained in his head about how chilly the seasons were starting to get. The wind and the cold was slowly getting to him. But as he turned around he noticed an individual standing in the room with him.

It wasn't Aether, it was somebody who suddenly appeared without making any kind of noise.

The Adeptus couldn't believe that the bard he met two weeks ago was standing right infront of him, for a second he was startled and didn't know what to say or do. Was this another dream?

"Hello! I'm sorry for barging in so suddenly but I sensed you have finally woken up, and since the traveler is kinda busy at the moment, I decided to check in on you!" Said Venti with a big smile on his face. "How are you feeling? Do you need anything?"

"Huh...how did you manage to get in here? How was I unable to sense you?"

The boy with the green cape ignored the question and started looking around the apartment, he was checking out the rooms and if anything was wrong or out of the ordinary.

"Um..." the Yaksha was unsure what he was doing, it was some very odd behavior indeed. It was impossible that this guy was the Anemo archon Barbatos. He was just cheerfully checking the place out.

"Wow...such cute little apartment I've gotta admit! Aether has good taste in stuff like this." He Complimented as he finally finished checking out the place.

Xiao had his arms crossed and just stared at the boy, wondering what he wanted. He was also quite nervous to start a conversation so he didn't say anything.

"Why the annoyed look? I made my way all the way here to have a chat with you and this is how I get treated..."

"Sorry, I'm still a bit sleepy."