I sat on the collapsed tree with my mouth slightly agape, staring into the distance. What Paimon said shocked me but only a little. So my suspicions were right before, however, it didn't explain why he said the things he did when we met the last time a month ago. He said that if he had an order to do that he would kill me without hesitation. And now it kind of occurred to me.
Wasn't he supposed to do that way back when at that time when everything started?
He didn't do it back then. Instead, he saved me from falling to my death and tried to stand up against Signora before she took me...
He cried.
Childe cried.
Why did I forget about that? He did fall to his knees and cry that day - it never occurred to me, why he did that but maybe it meant that he couldn't do it. That something was stopping him from doing it... Was it because he loved me back then already? If so then... How long have I been clueless like that?
"Lumine?" Paimon asked shaking her hands in front of my face trying to get me to come back to reality. "Are you going to say something about it?"
"I don't know," I answered before I could even think. "I'm even more confused than before." Paimon knew about our conversation before we left Sneznhaya. Why didn't she say something about it the moment I told her the details of it? I couldn't help but feel strange anxiety about the whole situation and I couldn't tell why. "Why are you telling me this now?" I asked looking to the pixie that seemed a bit taken aback by my question.
"Well uh... It was hard to keep it a secret when you were acting like that all the time." She crossed her arms.
"Like what? I'm acting normal." Or at least that's what I thought. She proved me wrong pretty easily.
"Well... If by normal you mean walking into buildings whenever we pass by some fatui delegates or being a massive space-cadet all of a sudden whenever we see ANYTHING that resembles Sneznhaya, Dragonspine for example or reading each letter from Mister Zhongli at least twice or thrice every time with the same anticipation in your eyes like you're hoping to hear something in particular from him... No that's not normal. Not for you at least. You never lost your focus mid-battle and now a small attack from hydro shamachurl is enough to make you space out. And as far as it goes I don't think you're thinking about Barbara at these times!" She finished speaking inhaling sharply and looking at me as if waiting for an answer, but I only blinked at her. At that time, when she pointed all these things out it actually made me realize how unusual my behavior recently was. "Do you really want to tell me you don't know why is that?"
"Do you think I'm sick?" I answered after a little moment of silence to which she only facepalmed as if I said something utterly stupid.
"No, Lumi you're not sick..." She said in a defeated tone. "Unless caring for someone more than you're willing to admit can be considered a sickness?" She added, which made me get up quickly. I wanted to shout out 'What' at her, but for some reason, my voice was stuck in my throat and what I found even weirder was the fact that I could feel my body temperature rise, not from anger. I couldn't make out the reason, but I felt that way often recently - thus thinking I was about to get sick. "Your face is red as a tomato just at the mention, you might as well admit it." She shrugged and I sat back down raising my hand to my cheeks. They really were flaming.
"Do... Do you think I...?" I whispered, something inside stopping me from finishing the thought out loud.
"I think you feel the same way about him. Well, it's pretty obvious if I'm being honest." Paimon crossed her arms again. She didn't look disappointed - on the contrary, she had her usual cheery smile on her face. "I'm happy for you." She added and I looked at her with surprise. I didn't know, why her words made me warm inside. The anxiety or confusion wasn't there anymore. I felt weird euphoria and it was a completely strange feeling to me. As a person that traveled through countless universes - the idea of getting attached to anything or anyone in one of the worlds was pretty alien. The idea of developing any feelings of affection towards someone from one of the worlds was even more alien. I never felt that way towards anyone. Could it be called 'love'? Or was it not enough to be called that? It didn't feel like any other feeling I ever had, it was a lot stronger and it made me feel warm inside... But it was a different warmth than the one I felt when I reminisced the days I spent with my brother... Childe wasn't my brother, so it sort of made sense but still...
"It's strange," I said placing my hand on my chest. I could feel my heart pounding so fast I thought it was going to burst and whenever I thought about talking about it to Childe it was becoming even faster - but again not because of fear, it's like excitement at the thought of even meeting him again was giving my heart the energy to run in a race. "What should I do about it?" I asked Paimon that sighed with resignation, clearly annoyed at my cluelessness in all that matter. To my surprise, she wasn't feeling any kind of uncomfortable with the idea of me falling in love with someone... I would feel weird if it was her, so it only made me wonder if the topic wasn't really strange to her.
"Well... Normally people would talk to each other about it, but I guess you both are a bit of a special case." She said and then it occurred to me that he never said anything that would point to that. She was usually nice to me and he did help me sometimes but I would never have guessed that he might have any feelings towards me. I wondered if he was scared to say it out loud or if he was scared of telling it to me. Paimon said that she learned from Zhongli, so apparently, it wasn't that much of a secret, to begin with. Maybe I just refused to see it somehow. I really, really wanted to talk to Childe about all that, but I didn't even know how to reach him now. Was he in Sneznhaya, or was he somewhere else? I had no means of finding out and the possibility of fatui telling me that when asked was rather slim.
"Do you think Zhongli would know, where he is right now?" I asked, not replying to her remark and changing the topic a bit, which got me a surprised stare from her.
"Uhm... Maybe?" She answered scratching her cheek and I got up from the place and started heading towards the city. "Are we going Childe hunting? Wait that sounds wrong..." She said, but I didn't reply. I was supposed to have dinner with the knights tonight. Probably a good time to tell them that I'm going to visit Liyue in the coming days so they wouldn't be worried about a sudden disappearance, although they probably wouldn't be very worried, to begin with - they know I can handle myself after all.
"Do we seriously have no one to do this for us?" I whined looking at the stacks of paper in front of me.
"Don't complain. It's not like you were doing anything useful last days." Was what Signora said standing in front of the fireplace in the office.
"Well yea, but I'm sure that my talents could be used in better ways than filling recruitment submissions for the fatui..."
"Do you question Her Majesty's decision?" The lady asked turning her gaze to me.
"I wouldn't dare." I answered with a sigh while sitting down by the desk and thinking 'how should I get into it'. After around thirty minutes since I started - and twenty-five since the eight of Harbingers left the room - one of the palace guards appeared at the door.
"Master Childe. Someone wishes to see you." The man said and I could feel the joy of the fact that I'm no longer stuck with these papers spreading over me.
"And who might that be?" I asked getting up. It would be a lie to say that no part of me hoped it would be the short traveler with golden eyes. For some reason whenever I was to meet with someone I wished it would be her... Well, I knew the reason very well though. I missed her even though I had no guts to just go meet up with her especially with how our parting went... To inevitable disappointment, the visitor was no one special or of great importance to the fatui.
"Ekaterina?" I asked. She was someone I expected to see the least. "Aren't you supposed to be in Liyue?" I frowned a bit.
"Yes, Master Childe about that..." She started walking deeper into the room and handing me a piece of paper. It was the funding data of the bank - I've seen enough of those to know that the data written on this report was sad to look at.
"How did that happen?" I looked at her questioningly. "And wasn't Scaramouche supposed to take over the funding management after me?"
"Well, I'm afraid I must say that it's because of his... Rather drastic measures that a lot of debts were left without inheriting possibility." She looked to the ground as I continued to view the report with a frown still present on my face. "Master Scaramouche often wanted to deal with the biggest debts and payment collections himself and whenever the person in question said something that the Master didn't like he... Well..." I knew what she meant. Balladeer always had a bit of a short fuse and he wouldn't think of consequences.
"He ended up killing unwed people with no inheritors - leaving the debt or a payment impossible to be collected is that how it went?" I looked at her and she nodded.
"After I looked over our reports of funding I decided to seek an audience with Her Majesty hoping to bring you back in charge of Liyue branch, Master Childe." She bowed. "I know that it means you will have to leave your family again but-"
"Enough. What did Her Royal Highness say about the whole ordeal?" I cut her off.
"She understood the situation and asked me to have you depart with me back to Liyue."
I sighed. I didn't mind going back to Liyue, the city was kinda pretty and there were a lot of battle opportunities when I went out in my free time, which I didn't have a lot of here. Sure I wasn't happy about leaving my family, but whatever Tsaritsa wished of me was I was bound to do - and so I ended up leaving my country on the evening that day.
Note: Here we are. The next is most likely going to be the last chapter here and it may or may not be the longest, i can't tell since as of the moment I'm writing this note it's still in development ^w^