Viparyas For You (ScaraLumi)

10

Lumine shut the door behind her and set the Wanderer down on the nearest chair while he tried to recover from the ever-growing embarrassment that filled his system. She had brought him to a small storage house that a kind local offered when she saw the panicked expression written across the Traveler's face and her dramatically coughing companion with his arm around her shoulder. She pleaded for Paimon to stay behind and look after Hilmi and Ebeid, and though the flying companion refused at first, wanting to help her, she promised her some cream sauce-filled fish to which the floating companion huffed and complied. She was fully aware of the obvious bribery, and yet it still worked on her anyway because to her, if there's food to be had, nothing else should matter.

Standing across the room, Lumine watched as the Wanderer heaved in silence, his head leaning against the wall as she fiddled with her fingers, guilt washing all over her face.

"Sorry..." she muttered to which he stole a glance at her before sitting up straight and folding his arms as if whatever happened just a while ago never even happened in the first place.

"You never informed me of any established..." he coughed awkwardly, "...labels, and I don't remember talking about the said topic either. What happened to consent and all that bullshit?"

"Look— I'm sorry! I just— I got too carried away, okay? I was just really... happy," she muttered, her voice trailing off as she averted her eyes from guilt and embarrassment. "You took care of me even though it wasn't necessary... and, um... I got to... hold your hand..." At this point, she wanted to sink deeper into a hole and die.

He raised a brow, and though it was clear he seemed the least bit flustered, he pretended to be calm and composed about it. "If anything, you sound a little too touch-starved if you're overreacting like that over such petty little physical gestures. You're not telling me you've never been held by another man, are you?"

Sure she was. She remembered back in Liyue when she helped take down Osial. When the platform they all stood on disintegrated, she fell, and Xiao was right in time to save her from the fall. She also remembered her first encounter with Ei when Thoma was about to get his vision confiscated. When she got thrown out of the Plane of Euthymia, he was quick to pick her up and take her away from the scene. Not to mention, she also remembered passing out when she first entered Sumeru after inhaling a scent Haypasia had used back then and finding out how Tighnari was the one who carried her to Gandharva Ville.

She was thankful for them and other people for helping her when she needed help the most. They were good friends to her. It was hard to catch any feelings when she was too preoccupied with her mission to traverse the seven nations and find answers to the insurmountable questions building up in her mind, especially when it came to her brother.

The frowning companion sitting in front of her on the other hand was a completely different case. He was a wanderer, never staying put in just one place, and so was she. He felt abandoned in this world by many people, and though she could not exactly say she went through the same suffering he did, she empathized with him. They both lost people dear to them, and though his actions can never be justified, she wanted to think he was just as human as the rest of them were even though by default he wasn't. Even he had feelings of his own. Now he was just seeking purpose in this world, just as she sought the one person she had always called home, a purpose of her own as well.

Most especially, with shared past grievances against each other followed by a series of puzzle pieces she slowly put back together to solve the mystery of his own to which only she was the sole witness and record keeper of what had happened, it felt like a responsibility she had to carry along with many other things. At least at first, it was, then there was an established alliance with respect, followed by friendship, as much as he first refused to harbor any more 'useless' connections with anyone like such (if not for a certain Dendro-borne tiny archon with a strong will to get the two along together), and now it turned into this chaotic mess of what anyone would call young love. Young, because if it wasn't any clearer, neither of them committed themselves to any such relationships.