Kill Me Slowly || Tartaglia/Childe

Chapter 12

The skies were particularly blue today. There were no signs of dark clouds, a beautiful day to wake up to. Thankfully, your fever has died down and Ganyu has permitted you to leave your room whenever you want to. After eating breakfast, you went to tend to your freshly bloomed glaze lilies. You hum a melody to yourself, plucking several of them before returning to the camp to give them out and the first one you saw was Ganyu.

"Ganyu!" She snaps out of her daze, eyes half-lidded. Having a massive workload and working between Ningguang and Childe has taken a toll on her sleep. Although she's never been fazed by the work, she was given an important task. The more important the task is, the more effort she puts into it, but she also becomes increasingly nervous and is more prone to making mistakes and she did, which caused her to redo her work that overlapped with her sleeping schedule.

"H-Huh? Oh! Princess (First Name)..." you hand her a flower and she looks at you confused. "What's this? Is today a special day?" You shook your head and said, "It's for you."

Suddenly, an idea popped into your mind. You take the flower from her hand and place it on her hair, near the area behind her ear. "Pretty." You compliment and she blushes, touched by your small gift. "T-Thank you, Princess (First Name)." You reply with a "you're welcome" before looking for the next person, which happens to be Xingqiu.

Xingqiu was quietly writing, dragging the heavily inked brush on the thick sheet of paper. His eyebrows were furrowed, too concentrated at the flow of the story but soon, he clicks his tongue in annoyance as he crosses the wrong choice of wording out by roughly erasing the word with black ink. Despite being well versed and constantly drowned in books, he didn't know how to carry on to the next part of the story.

Softly, you knock on the door. Xingqiu raises his head, almost dismissing you off if he hadn't taken a proper glance at you. "Princess (First Name)." He greets, taking a bow. "I'm sorry but I cannot attend to you as of the moment. I'm quite busy as you can see."

"That's alright, Xingqiu. I just wanted to drop this off." You place the glaze lily in front of him. "I hope you can get through whatever you're doing!" Xingqiu nods, acknowledging your statement. He watches you leave to search for your next target. Then he stares at the flower before picking it up. Looking at the beautiful features of the flower, an idea popped inside his head. He mentally thanked you for inspiring him and continued with the brush at hand.

Next was Chongyun. He was not in his room, which was somehow weird, considering the fact that he's been sulking ever since the day Ganyu had chastised him about feeding a popsicle to a sick person. Though you managed to find him at the corner of the hallway that leads to the entrance of the camp. "Chongyun?"

His body shook and he halts his movements, not bothering to move. "Oh no." He thinks, slowly turning to face you. You peek over his body, trying to eye the thing he was hiding, and you manage to see a glimpse of it. Having caught him red-handed, you began to laugh. Chongyun is eating a popsicle again.

The color red starts to spread all the way from Chongyun's face to his ears. "P-Please don't tell..." He spoke in a small voice that was loud enough for you to hear. You shook your head, placing your thumb and index finger on your lips. You glide the two fingers from right to left, throwing away an imaginary key. "My mouth's zipped."

Chongyun breathes in a sigh of relief and eyes the flowers in your arms. You notice his gaze and you pick one of the flowers and hand it to him. "For you." He looks at you confused, his hand mid-air as to contemplating whether he should take it or not. He glances at you and you had a look that urged him to go on and take it, and he did. He mutters a "thank you" under his breath and becomes flustered.