Alone { xɪᴀᴏ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ}

【Ｃｈａｎｇｅ】

You ran down the inn's steps getting ready to leave for liyue. You needed some time off from being cooped up in the inn all this time. Nearly exiting the inn you were startled to a stop after hearing a voice.

"Y/n." You didn't even need to turn around to recognize owner of the voice,

"What do you need verr?"

"So?"

"So, what?"

"So? What were you doing with the mysterious adeptus hm?"

"Xiao?"

"Yes, Xiao the one who hates socializing especially with humans?"

"Uh-, Well you see-, I don't know it just happened??? We ran into each other a lot and I just started talking and he listened-" Verr giggled a bit interrupting your rambling session.

"I see, where are you going now?"

"Hm? Oh, liyue! I'm hoping to run into an acquaintance of mine."

"Have fun then if you run into trouble you know where to find me...
Or you could call on that new friend of yours."

You blushed a bit at the tone and indication of her words but you feigned ignorance and went on to liyue

...

You walked through liyue trying not to buy everything you saw which was very hard since liyue had such beautiful pieces of art. Eventually you found what you were here for though.

Zhongli stood in front of a merchant looking semingly...troubled. You walked over to see what was up though a part of you already had an idea.
"Zhongli?"

"y/n? I see we meet again just not quite at the most fashionable time."

He looked back over to the merchant who seemed to be growing more impatient by the second

"Im guessing you dont have mora?"

"ah, you'd be correct"

"how much is it?"

"220,000 Mora" the merchant interuppted. You almost choked and you would have too if you werent trying to keep up your formal persona but that was more than all of your paychecks combined so far.

"I got it." You turned to the new voice only to turn roght back around

Childe.

You wanted to cry. Though you were interested in meeting all of your favorite characters, Childe was not one of them. You didnt want to involve yourself with the fatui when you could barely survive a slime. He was sneaky, too sneaky and he was also a ginger a crime among all crimes.

"Thank you, Childe"

"No problem who's this?"

You let zhongli speak for you as you preferred to have as little contact with him as possible.
"This is y/n, a close acquaintance of mine."

"Hi." the only words you could seem to get out as you felt your social skills were depleting incredibly fast.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Childe"

"Im guessing you both wanted to see me, shall we sit down somewhere?"

Settling down at a nearby outdoor table you prepared yourself for whatever hell this conversation could turn into

"So how do you know zhongli?"

"He uh helped me get to Wangshu inn when I was completely lost."

"You live in wangshu inn?"