If, and Only If || (Xiao x Reader)

二十

"Xiao, why don't we take you to her mountain?" He suggested.

Making both Xiao and Venti look at him questionably. Venti already went there.

"But I thought it would be more affective if we show him Y/N? But she's currently missing..." Venti mumbled as he chugged the 3ft bottle of wine. The same one Y/N always drinks.

Xiao looked at the bottle, and saw a flash of an image of the same wine bottle and a small cup. And half of the face of somebody laughing as they drank from their own cup. And then the vision blacked out, as they fell towards the table. It might have been a memory of his own.

"I've seen that bottle before..." Xiao said, looking at Zhongli hopeful, and hoping Zhongli could follow on with what he was talking about.

"Right. You were having a drink with Y/N, and you were unconscious by the time I had arrived, you had fallen fast asleep." Zhongli nodded at his own memories, and recognizing that he was most likely correct.

Venti stopped his chugging and looked at the bottle he was holding, in sudden realization that they were talking about the wine bottle. And that was coincidentally the same one that Y/N had usually.

Dandelion wine. Though she definitely drinks the ones from Liyue as well.

Xiao looked back at the star he clutched in his palms tightly.

"Take me to the mountain." He paid no mind that he might have sounded rude towards Zhongli. But he didn't quite care at the moment, and faced the fact that he needed to remember. There was no other choice. And the closest for him to remember was going to places, since the person in question was missing.

Zhongli of course, didn't mind with the tone of his voice at all. In fact, he was more glad that Xiao was determined. Being a proud father like figure, he nodded happily in agreement, and pat his shoulder firmly. An action and feeling he couldn't put to words.

Xiao slowly got out of the bed again. The cold air hitting the skin under the fabric of his clothes. He still didn't care about the blood stains. He could wash them another time.
And as Xiao was currently wrapped in many bandages, he looked like a wreck truthfully. But he still looked handsome as ever, as his face was not the part that was covered.

The three made it to the mountain.

It looked like the one in Xiao's dream.

"It looks like how it did 3,000 years ago." Zhongli said in slight disbelief.

Venti sighed as well. "Yeah, it didn't look very clean when I came here a few moments before. What happened?"

"There is no sense of life around here..." Xiao mumbled as he looked around again. Feeling nostalgic, at each look he had seen.

Maybe because of the drastic change in how the environment looked, he didn't remember anything that time he first came to the mountain? Though, how come Y/N lied about how she's only heard of him when she already knew him from before?

"3,000 years prior, it was all foggy. There wasn't much life around. And was infested with certain spirits. Later on, while Xiwangmu was around, it had gotten better slowly. But now, even after only a month, it does not look as beautiful as it did before..." Zhongli walked forward towards the shrine that had appeared through the thin mist and fog.