the opportunity that was hard to come by | a chilumi fanfiction

[1] a shot of embarrassment and a glass of WTF

Author's note: This is my very first fanfiction on Genshin Impact. This was a collaboration between me and my cousin, Maxine. We hope you all like it. We are open for feedbacks and suggestions if you have.

💜💜

It was a good night. It had been a good week and even better month, and Lumine was actually pretty damn happy for the first time in a long time.

She was, at the age of 28, a curator for one of the biggest corporations in Liyue and in Teyvat. She had a circle of friends that she loved, one of which she was in the middle of throwing a party at her place to celebrate a promotion she had gotten, and while the party was small, she was having a blast. Laughter was in the air and a decent amount of alcohol was flowing, and it was nights like these that made her thank the archons above that she'd taken a chance to move to Liyue on little more than a hope and a prayer several years earlier.

Of course, that didn't mean those same friends that she loved and cherished couldn't also be annoying as hell, especially once they were congregated together and had a couple of drinks with them during the party.

"You know what I think I might like best about tonight?" Hutao asked, drink in hand as she lounged on the couch next to Lumine. She glanced  at her friend and then added with a small smile, "Diluc isn't here."

Lumine rolled her eyes and ignored the responding laughs of the others in the room. "Do you have to bring him up?"

"Well, we did have to tolerate him for your sake for six very painful months," came the smooth and velvety voice of Xiao, next to his girlfriend. Hutao perched on her boyfriend's lap to make more sitting room for others, and from the way he was blushing, it was hard to believe that they had been together for five years already.

"Very painful," Yunjin butted as she walked towards the table to rest after her performance a few minutes ago.

"Hey Yunjin! Good work today. See?" Hutao gestured. "Even she couldn't stand him, and Yunjin is nice to everyone."

"Yeah, I know, he was a colossal jerk. Don't remind me," Lumine chuckled with her hands up, all too eager to forget the rather steep lowering of her standards that had led to that relationship in the first place. She had definitely learned her lesson, however.

"Who's a colossal jerk?"

And just like that, with a handful of casually spoken words, Lumine felt the familiar rush of her breath leaving her lungs and nervous flutters swimming through her belly as the couch depressed next to her. Just like she had long trained herself to do, however, she shoved those feelings away and then made a silly and falsely angry face when her other friend, Childe - her best friend, if she was being honest - nudged her legs with his foot and told her to scoot as he sat next to her.

"Diluc, of course," Yanfei answered for Lumine from across the table, and as soon as the words left her mouth, Childe groaned loudly and almost spit out the mouthful of beer he'd just sucked out from the bottle in his hand.

"Ugh, that fucking loser," he immediately grumbled, pushing back a lock of short hair that had fallen into hi face while Lumine pretendeed not to watch. "Do we really have to talk about him?"

"No!" Lumine exclaimed. "Hutao brought him up, I didn't. I'd be happy to never hear his stupid name again."

"I still can't believe how easily he let you go," Chongyun mused, snuggling slightly next to Xingqiu, and obviously drunk being a lightweight.

"Actually," Hutao shrugged, "it makes sense. I still think he was gay and just hadn't come to terms with it yet."

"If he was gay, I would definitely know." Xingqiu expressed hugging and petting his boyfriend who was half asleep and half drunk.