As The Sun Gazes Upon The Moon [Zhongchili]

Chapter 7 - He Who Gazes into the Abyss

The next week passes peacefully, with no Abyss minions turning up to disturb the peace, and no more strange proclamations from Childe, who sleeps peacefully under Zhongli's watch. He's woefully pale and undernourished, but the doctors declare that he's progressing well, and on the seventh day they remove his stitches, leaving a long, pink line crossing from his hip to his midsection, the evidence of Zhongli's misstep forever engraved upon him.

With Childe declared physically sound, The Tsaritsa orders that Zhongli leave Childe's room at least once a day. If he spends too long inside for her liking, a creeping layer of cryo crawls up from the floor, encasing each limb in a biting frost until he leaves the palace, allowing him to return only once he's spent an 'adequate' length of time perambulating the gardens.

Zhongli comes to enjoy these outings, and on some days Tonia joins him, bounding along ahead. 'Touching grass', she calls it, which is a peculiar choice of phrasing, for not once do either of them plunge their hands through the blanket of snow to touch any kind of grass. He voices as such and Tonia tells him he's 'probably too old to get it'.

Zhongli makes a mental note to ask Director Hu about this new turn of phrase once he returns to Liyue.

Following one morning of particularly harsh snowfall, Zhongli drops Tonia off at her room, her hair damp and her cheeks red with frostnip, and he returns to his quarters to change before returning to Childe's room.

As always he knocks three times on the door, but instead of the usual silence, today he receives a reply.

"Who's there?" Childe is awake, sounds far more alert than the previous times he has woken.

This is good; perhaps finally they can speak about the goings on of the past weeks.

"It is Zhongli. May I come in?"

There's the scraping of a drawer closing and footsteps against the floor before Childe answers. "Yeah, you can."

Zhongli sees himself in, expecting to see Childe sitting in bed propped up on his pillows, but all that's on the bed is a pile of crumpled sheets and the drip dangling from its stand, no longer attached to its intended recipient.

"Zhongli." Childe leans against the window nearest the door, but doesn't turn to greet him, fixated on the courtyard below. "You're still here."

"Yes." Zhongli takes a step closer. "As stated before, my intention is—"

"Don't." Childe whirls around keeping a white-knuckled grip on the window sill while he clenches his other hand into a fist at his side. Teeth grind and his jaw locks, eyes filled with ferocity befitting a caged animal. "No closer."

Zhongli attempts to reply, but falters. What has he done to anger Childe so, when Childe welcomed him into the room only moments earlier?

And the room itself...

It's as though Childe has taken it upon himself to launch a crusade upon the furniture. The wardrobe gapes open, doors flapping like an open wound, and the clothes bleed out onto the floor in a manner suggesting the entire thing had been picked up and shaken out.

The set of drawers have received a similar treatment, and all apart from the lowermost drawer are open, the contents disembowelled across the room. The curtains have been yanked open as wide as possible, and one of them hangs limply off its railing to sag across the floor, while the white netting has been torn off completely, a truce flag ignored and dumped unceremoniously in the corner.

"I... don't understand," Zhongli admits, backing into the doorway.

Childe swallows, rubbing his palm against his forehead. "Good, it's better that way."