Sun broke through between the blinds, casting lines of sunlight over Lumine's face. She blinked over in the direction of the second cot. It was still a mess of blankets, pillows, and Xiangling's teddy bear—but no Xiangling.
Lumine frowned, a jolt of panic starting her heart. She grabbed her phone off of the desk beside her bed.
Scientists confused by strange phenomena throughout Teyvat
Return of visions baffle historians
Authorities have yet to make any statement on strange weather phenomena
Below the headlines was a text:
Unknown Number: hey can you pick me up from the hospital?
Lumine bolted up and swiped right to answer her texts. She furiously thumbed-in the passcode. The area code was Snezhnayan, upon further examination, not Liyuean. Besides, Xiangling was in her phone as Roomie with a teddy bear emoji beside it.
No no no no no—
Lumine started to furiously text a reply, only to backspace it. The glimmers of a past that was not hers gave her pause. He had been both the gallant hero and holding a sword to her throat.
What did it mean?
Against her better judgement, she hit the call button.
He picked up on the third ring. "Hey girlie."
"The name's Lumine." She bit her lip. "We're not doing the weird pick-up names."
"Eh, that's fine." She could picture Ajax shrugging on the other end. "I got what I wanted, anyway."
"Does this work on every girl you flirt with?" Lumine's feet hovered over the cold bamboo floor. "You call her the most annoying pet names until she gives up her name?"
"It worked with you."
"You got me there." Lumine sighed and stood up. "Look, why are you texting me to take you back to your dorm? Shouldn't you be texting Zhongli, isn't he a close friend of yours?"
"I mean, he is, and he's totally my backup option." Ajax paused, his tone turning more contemplative. "But I think you and I should talk."
Lumine froze. "You saw it too, then?"
"The flashbacks?" The cocky swagger was completely gone now. "Yeah."
"Fine." Lumine grabbed a white fleece hoodie off of her desk chair. "Hang on a few minutes, I'll come and get you. Besides, I should check on my roommate, she also had to go to the hospital last night."
"Oof, bad luck." Ajax clicked his tongue.
"No kidding." Lumine kicked on her flip-flops. "You better be ready to go by the time I get there."
"I will, girlie."
Before Lumine could yell at him, he hung up with a click.
Bubu Hospital was bustling with nurses and doctors on overtime, and Ajax was waiting in one of the emergency room partitions, his knee bouncing to the rhythm of the heart monitor next door.
"Congratulations, your girlfriend's here," a bored-looking nurse declared as she pushed the curtain aside. "Now I don't have to worry about you being a menace to society."
She then looked to Lumine and there was a twinkle of pity in her eyes. "His discharge papers are all good to go. Good luck, kiddo."
She then heartily slapped Lumine on the back and hurried off to deal with the patient next door.
Lumine looked to Ajax. He didn't seem too worse for wear, having spent the night in the emergency room.
"Come on, let's go, let's get you back to your dorm." She grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet.
"Aw, come on, can't we at least go get breakfast?" Ajax whined. "I bet you haven't had anything to eat yet, either."
Of course that was when Lumine's stomach rumbled. Loudly.
She glanced up at him, about to argue.
"Come on, I know the best place to eat." He walked by her side down the streets of Liyue.
A hundred years ago, the golden cast on the city came from the lanterns rather than electricity. The smell of sea-salt, cooking fish and peppers danced in the air as the storytellers and the opera-singers' performances mingled into the music of the city's heart.
"Perhaps we can share some Snezhnayan Fire-Water," he added. "I've got some in my place—won't have to worry about the bartenders there."
He winked, but his expression grew more solemn. "There's a tradition around Fire-Water back at home. It's said that a friend who goes outside to drink Fire-Water with you and chat—that's a real friend, the kind you want at your back in the battlefield."
He paused. "I'd want you to be by my side."
"Yeah." She touched his arm. "You're right—we need to discuss. . . well, you know."
He nodded, then his grin grew. "Come on, I know a great cafe down near Chihu Rock."
These were the moments that were the definition of living over surviving. The city was fairly quiet, only the occasional car and mountain swallow drifting through the air. The sun was still in the east, making its slow arc across the sky. Various breakfast dishes lay across the table between Lumine and Ajax, a mug of steaming tea between her hands.
"These flashbacks, these visions. . . ." Ajax glanced into his tea mug. "I wonder if they're from past lives of ours. Zhongli was telling me a story not too long ago about a pair of lovers who kept popping up time and time again."
"Uh-huh." Lumine leaned back. "I mean, I wouldn't go straight to that theory. Maybe we just somehow got a glimpse of someone else's lives?"
"But why do we look the exact same then?" Ajax gestured with his chopsticks.
"Doppelgängers exist." Lumine shrugged. "Genetics are weird, I don't know."
"There's more than that too," he reminded her. "The vision is the same, the names are the same—Lumine and Ajax. Names that haven't exactly been popular in the last hundred years."
"There is a rhyme to it," she supposed. "The question is, what does it mean? And why did we only start to see it after the falling stars?"
"I don't know, but I was looking up stuff on my phone while I was waiting around in the emergency room." He pulled up his phone screen. "A hundred years ago, there was a star-fall in Liyue and Mondstadt. Meteorites hit the ground and anyone who touched them were caught in a sleep without waking, with visions of another man's life."
Lumine tilted her head. "It's not quite like what happened last night."
"No," he agreed. "But it's the closest historical record I can find."
He slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Between the two of us, maybe we can do some research and crack the case."
Lumine raised her eyebrows. "The two of us?"
"Come on, you've seen the flashbacks, you and I both know that there's a connection between us." He raised his tea mug.
He raised a mug in an outdoor restaurant in Inazuma, a toast to a connection between them, tied in red string around their ankles.
"That's true." Lumine looked out over the city. "I just don't even know where to start."
He reached for her hand. "We can start by making the greatest team Teyvat has ever seen."
"Do you accept my proposal?"
Before Lumine could speak, she was interrupted by a rumbling in the ground and the sound of screams.
