Freedom (Jean x oc) *Completed*

Chapter 21

"You're trying to find someone named Zhongli?" 

Amell didn't count the number of times he'd pull a person's ear and ask them that question. He didn't ask them, he forced them to answer. He was slowly going insane and his situation desperate. It had only been a few weeks. 

A few weeks of trying to find the person he failed to save. Because he was weak. He was incompetent. He only relied on that man and forgot himself in the process.

After the shaking of the person's head, they left and were never seen again. 

It was back to walking on that thorny road again. Under the rain with no one to tell him to take shelter. 

Amell had been too negligent, maybe even avid for just one person. It may have been the company or the love he never experienced. The roaming merchants, vendors, and families looked at him like a prevalent occurrence. A dreg of the population. 

"Good for them, they have a place to go home to," Amell whispered, his eyes downcast and hollow. His shoulders shook against the cold patters of raindrops. Where even was he going? His legs were about to give in. 

"Why was I born anyway?"

"Stand up,"  A stranger said to him. 

His hearing failed him. He hadn't eaten for three days. His stomach was almost similar to an empty bowl. With the darkest clouds, he tried with all his strength to look up at the person who just raised their voice at him. 

"You're tainting our tiles with your dirty feet. Can you sit somewhere else?" 

Amell was about to get up, his mind screaming at him. 'Nothing here either... I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Zhongli. I'm sorry.'

"Come inside." The man pulled at Amell's torn clothes, forcing him to stand on his two feet. "Boys shouldn't whimper. Get yourself cleaned up at our place and take a rest. You look awful."

Amell didn't know why his heart was alive once more. He didn't realize his eyes were slowly adjusting to the light when the man opened his doors for him. He forgot how to be grateful. 

"Get out of here already you stupid curse-bearing child!" A pebble was tossed at Amell by a random person. He groaned in response, hissing at the throbbing sensation roaring on his exposed skin. "The weather turned nuts because of you! Get outta here!"

"Pay no heed to the local crazy. They're everywhere on the streets looking for something to pick on," the man said. 

Amell didn't know it yet but this weird and average-looking person would give him the opportunity to learn how to be human. 

He'd grow up, go out and find Zhongli, improved and well-mannered.

He didn't disregard the fact it would take years. 

And it did.

~*~

"I'm Hu Tao! I work at a funeral parlor as its director! You could say I'm one of the top brass in that section!" 

Amell couldn't take this girl seriously. Even Diluc could craft better jokes and get a balloon to die in laughter. It didn't vex him. He was just curious who this person was. Even if she appeared to be a childish denizen of Liyue, she felt like an offbeat individual. 

Was it the porkpie hat? Or the fact young kids nowadays just wore shorts out in the open? Her pupils were too intricate. Superfluous to the point that the deities have microscopically built her an all-knowing eye shaped like a star. Those thoughts subsided as soon as she let out a yawn out of nowhere.