Prompt: Childhood friends [2200 words]
The little boy Ajax wasn't good at making friends. So when new neighbors moved in not far from their home in Snezhnaya, it didn't change much for him at first. However, when he had to accompany his parents to welcome the new neighbors, Ajax was surprised.
These people were from abroad and had children about the same age as him, around seven years old: twins who were laughing and chasing each other while Ajax clung to his mother's leg who was in deep conversation with the neighbor.
He watched the scene of the twins with attention, envying these people playing with so much enthusiasm, the frank laughter escaping from them sounding like the soft sound of chimes. And when he met the little girl's eyes, Ajax forgot to breathe. Her golden eyes pierced him as she stopped chasing her brother to look at him. And Ajax hid even more behind the meager hiding place that was his mother's leg. This scene made the two mothers laugh, and they told the three children to go and play together. So he was forced to come closer despite his shyness, and to take part in the game.
Seeing his hesitation, the little girl took one of his hands in hers and guided him to the back of the garden where they sat on a stone bench under a tree with small wooden swords beside it.
And from that moment on, Ajax made new friends.
When he was at home, he came to the twins to pass the time and play various games. These two little strangers, who had difficulty acclimatizing to the snow and the bitter cold of Snezhnaya, managed to put a smile on the boy's face at all times, especially the little girl—her name was Lumine.
Her smiles were pure and frank, beaming at the simple vision of Ajax, the gold of her eyes sparkling at the arrival of her new friend. And Ajax did the same, cracking smiles he knew he couldn't prevent, and roaring with laughter at every opportunity with them.
He made many memories with them. But far too few for his taste.
For one never knows when it all will end.
A fire had broken out in the middle of the night in the twins' house several years after they had moved in. The flames melted the surrounding snow, lighting up the dark night with a shifting, frightening, out-of-place glow.
And Ajax, awakened by the commotion, could only watch from afar as the flames devoured the frame of the dwelling, an intense feeling of helplessness taking root deep inside him. He was only thirteen at the time, so there was nothing he could do except watch the adults rush to the scene to check if there were any survivors.
Ajax held his breath, worried that his neighbors and friends were already gone. What a relief it was when he heard that no bodies had been found in the rubble. Lumine had been found in front of the house, miraculously unharmed except for the soot covering her skin. But there was no trace of the parents and Aether.
For some unknown reason, Lumine disappeared without a trace just a few days after these events. She shouted to anyone who would listen that she was going to find back her family, but no one believed her to be able to put her words into action until she did so for real: she went on the road.
And since then, Ajax had never seen her again.
This friend he deeply admired and hoped to see every time he went to his neighbors' house continued to haunt his memory even years later, once he became an adult.
So when he heard rumors of a certain "Lumine" when he was stationed in Liyue, Childe couldn't help but feel his heart leap. If this was the Lumine of his childhood, he had to see her, no matter what.
So he traced the rumors that she was visiting Liyue after recovering from a certain accident, to find out where she had been seen most recently. Fortunately for him, he didn't have to go far as she was at Liyue Harbor at that exact moment.
Childe then set out on a frantic quest to find her, to see if she was well, and if she had found the family she claimed to be able to find when she was thirteen.
When finally a puddle of blond was finally in sight, a blond that Childe knew all too well, that he had admired for a very long time when he was younger without her looking, a blond that brought a smile to his face no matter what the circumstances, he quickly approached this figure who seemed to be doing well, the hope of reconnecting with this person from his past more present than ever.
Her name came out of his mouth, joy and hesitation tinting his intonation. And that name had an effect, stopping the young woman with a white dress in her tracks as she crossed a street in the Harbor accompanied by a flying fairy, and who turned slowly, very slowly, far too slowly, towards the origin of that voice, until finally the sparkling gold of her eyes rested on the now adult figure of Childe.
The latter continued to approach, a smile taking place on his features at the idea that she recognized her name, so logically she was indeed this Lumine who never left his memories. With each step he took in her direction, closer to her, to her radiance, to her charm that she had possessed since her childhood, he could observe with more precision her delicate and more feminine features than before, making her person even more bewitching.
And he saw perfectly the different expressions succeeding one another on her pretty face: pure stupor giving way to intense joy, until finally being little by little eclipsed by what was akin to a terror that didn't say its name. The more Childe approached, the more she seemed to panic, her hands forming fists and clenching without Childe understanding the reason, golden eyes fleeing, trying in vain not to inescapably detail the man before her.
But when he was only a few steps away from her, ready to give her a friendly embrace, as a sign of reunion after an extremely long separation, Lumine started to take steps backwards, this terror not leaving her features, as if Childe was the worst monster imaginable in her eyes.
Frowning, he finally stopped as she kept a constant distance between them, sensing that something was wrong, that she was no longer the person he was used to being around as a child. It was her, but something seemed to have been altered in her. So Childe didn't try to go any further, so as not to invade her personal space while reintroducing himself, in case she didn't remember him—even if her eyes said otherwise.
"Lumine, it's me! Ajax!"
Placing a hand on his chest to point to himself, Childe wore a slight smile that was meant to be warm, but undoubtedly betrayed that shy concern that was making itself known within him at the thought that she might have forgotten him.
He wished ardently that she would relax, that she would return to her former naturalness, that she would relax her panic-stricken face, but only the opposite happened. The smile he gave her only seemed to increase the anguish he read in her, which grew so much that she quickly turned on her heels without a backward glance, her boots clacking on the stone floor of the street without Childe being able to do anything but watch her walk away and melt into the crowd, just like when they were little and she had gone on the road, to start her journey to find her family.
Disappointment and sadness stabbed at Childe's heart.
She really seemed to recognize him, but perhaps she just didn't want to reconnect with the past that Childe had prevented himself from forgetting.
So he could do nothing but go about his ordinary business for the next few days, unable to chase away the terrified expression that had tinged the young woman's sweet face. The cause of that fearful look was a complete mystery to him, no matter how many times he asked himself the question, and no matter how he turned the situation around.
There was only one plausible explanation: he was a ghost from the past that she wanted to forget and that had reappeared in her life.
It was the only explanation that could justify her perpetual flight every time Childe met her by chance at the Harbor.
Every time she left without saying a word to Childe, he felt his heart clench in his chest. He, who only wanted to greet her to feel at least once again that feeling that overwhelmed him when he was with her as a child, to hear her crystalline and melodious voice again, now he was being avoided like the plague. Without lying, it was painful.
Maybe she was totally indifferent to him, and that had been the case from the moment they met. In the end, maybe she just wanted them to remain strangers to each other.
But Childe wanted to know for sure. Which is why, when he once again came across her blonde head along the docks on a sunny day, he gently grabbed her wrist before she could once again take to her heels.
Forcibly stopped in her tracks, Lumine only tilted her head more towards the ground, her blonde locks framing her face obscuring her features, making it impossible for Childe to discern them. She didn't struggle, but was content to remain perfectly still as the grip around her wrist was gradually tightened by a Childe eager to get to the bottom of her thoughts.
"Lumine, why are you avoiding me?"
His intonation was this time filled with obvious sadness. He had nothing but affection for her, so seeing her run away in fourth gear every time he was in sight only pierced his heart with a sharp blade.
So the pressure that his hand was providing on her forearm surreptitiously increased, making Lumine react slightly and move her arm a little. Maybe she was in pain, but even now, no sound came out of her mouth.
It was at this moment that Paimon chose to return from her stroll to the Wanmin Restaurant, quickly outraged by this gesture that Childe was undertaking.
"Hey, let go of her!" she cried in her small, high-pitched voice as she quickly approached the situation.
"But I just want an answer!" portested Childe with his voice gradually rising, desperation permeating his words more and more. "After all this time, are we really nothing more than vague acquaintances?" he questioned, his voice ending in a whisper as he lowered his head to observe his hand on her forearm. "Talk to me, Lumine. Please."
His almost broken voice finally stole a reaction from Lumine as she turned violently towards him, her hair cleared from her face so that Childe could fully observe her expression; an expression that crumbled his heart even more. In front of him, Lumine had tears in her eyes, that salty liquid wetting her right cheek as a tear just escaped. Her pained expression was nothing like the terror he had seen on her face the last few times he had met her; it was much worse.
Pain filled her usually bright eyes, a grief unlike anything Childe had ever witnessed in his life. The unparalleled distress that emanated from her at that moment broke Childe's normally resilient heart. He didn't understand why she was down, but the effect was there: he wanted to hug her and lend her his shoulder to cry on while she told him what had put her in this state.
But before he could even implement this action, Paimon came to fly right next to Lumine, looking just as chagrined as she spoke again to answer his previous question.
"Ajax, she can't."
"Why?" he asked quickly, incomprehension mixed with frustration being felt in his voice, coupled with this sadness that Lumine managed to insinuate in his heart by the simple sight of her unbearable suffering.
He wanted to support her, to prove to her that she didn't have to be afraid of him, to withdraw into silence, to prove to her that she wasn't alone anymore and that she could tell him everything. Absolutely everything, like when they were just carefree children telling each other their little problems on the bench at the back of the garden, under this tree that had become their confidant with time. They constantly had things to say to each other. They could stay there for hours, telling each other the smallest thing in their lives, and creating stories in which they participated. Lumine was really talkative in those days, and was afraid of nothing, especially not of him. So to see her now silently crying in front of him was unbearable.
However, at this moment, while her golden eyes blurred by tears were focused with extraordinary sadness on Childe, he wasn't ready to discover that the reason for her silence wasn't his doing.
"Because since the accident, she can no longer speak."
[Written in 1h30]
A/N: Nobody asked for this angsty one-shot, but it doesn't matter, I like shattering your little hearts x) (you'll get tired of not reading happy stuff with me xD)
Five days have already passed, times flies <.< See you tomorrow for new adventures x)