The Boy Who Cried Fox

Gym (1)

Deciding to shift his attention to what classes he had, Childe looked at his schedule. English, Math, Engineering and Gym. Today was a good day. Gym was canceled last week as they had to find a new teacher for the job but they ended up with Beidou teaching again. It worked out as she was the best at any sport, physical combat was her favorite, and she wanted to teach here after she left. Thinking about what Beidou was going to give them, probably laps again, Childe didn't notice that Zhongli had woken up.

"Mmh..."

Childe heard some grunts from the person next to him. Zhongli's long eyelashes fluttered open before revealing amber eyes half lidded with sleep.

"Mornin' princess. Did you have a good nap?" Childe gently shook the remaining tiredness from the brunette. Stretching his arms out, Zhongli yawned and rubbed his eyes before answering Childe.

"Yes, I did. Thank you." Zhongli sat straight before checking the time. "We still have 15 minutes. Do you want to see your friends?"

"Yeah sure, babe. Let's go." Childe got up and cleaned up the table. Zhongli waited by the library door and the 2 left, talking about the book about Adepti.

"Caught in 4k." Lisa had a wide grin on her face as her phone camera was flashing. There was no way that any ship could escape her. Especially this one.

"Childe! Where were you?" Lumine ran up to hug the ginger. Behind her was Ei and her friends.

"Hey Morax." Ei waved at Zhongli, who waved back.

"Is this your roommate? She's so pretty!" A girl with blonde hair in a high messy ponytail ran up to them and seemed to be bursting like a firework. 2 other people walked up, an ice blue haired girl and a white blonde with a red streak boy, and began to observe the ginger and brunette.

"I'm Yoimiya! This is Ayaka and Kazuha!" Yoimiya was practically bouncing on her feet, which made it hard for Ayato to cut in and correct.

"Uh, Miya? That's not our roommate. It's the ginger." Thoma finally managed to interrupt her and cleared up the misunderstanding.

"Well, I'm still excited that such a pretty girl is so close to me!" Yoimiya seemed unbothered by this and was still just as excited as before.

"You're pretty too." Zhongli answered. When he spoke, Yoimiya stopped moving.

"What?" Ayaka's hand that was covering her mouth earlier was now dropped to her skirt, eyes widened with the sudden voice.

"Do I really look that feminine, Beelzebul?" Zhongli turned to Ei in desperation. She just face palmed and nodded.

"This is Zhongli and yes, he's a guy." Childe sighed while trying to contain his laughs.

"I'm so, so, sorry! I didn't know!" Yoimiya then bowed very low, apologizing profusely.

"Don't be. I don't care about pronouns so misgendering is fine by me." Zhongli was trying to calm down the flustered girl before him.

"Oh, class." Ayato looked at his phone. Class was in 2 minutes. Everyone said goodbye and Childe took Zhongli to his class again before heading to his English lecture. Nothing interesting really happened until Gym. Childe met Zhongli at the door to his class again and walked him to the gym. It was a large stadium with bleachers that covered the walls and 2 small breaks in the bleachers for the entrance and the changing rooms. Childe led the brunette into the changing rooms, which was already filled with half the school. Ever since they combined all the years to have the same Gym class for Beidou (except for the sports majors who have extra classes), people have been fighting against each other in almost every class. All of the male Harbingers were there, talking as they had some time to kill.

"Tartaglia! Over here!" Pantalone waved at the ginger, who reluctantly left Zhongli there, standing with some gym clothes in the middle of a room filled with men. Unsure of what to do, Zhongli made one thing clear; no one was going to see his body besides him. At all costs. Looking for the singular stalls, Zhongli nervously shuffled into a stall. Staring at the blank walls, Zhongli slowly removed his shirt. He rubbed his arms, which were full of tattoos, and just sat on the toilet seat, head in his hands. His hands soon wandered over to his back and he slowly traced the massive scar across his back. He got that from when he was young. A while later, Zhongli came out of the bathroom stall, white jacket on top of his black sleeveless turtleneck and black tights. He waited for Childe outside the changing rooms and sat on the floor.

"Let me just scooooooch past you there." A familiar voice was heard through the noise of almost every single student leaving. Zhongli made eye contact with Childe, who helped him off the floor.

"What were you doing on the floor?" Childe cocked his head in confusion as Zhongli answered.

"Waiting for you." Zhongli answered bluntly.

"Awwww, thanks babe. Now we wait." Childe showed Zhongli to some bleachers. The 2 sat there, once again saying nothing.

"Childe?" Zhongli was still looking at the court in front of him, multiple people either showing off or talking.

"Yes sweetheart?" Childe turned to face him.

"I...I wanted to ask you why you hang out with the Harbingers. I'm not saying you can't but...I don't trust any of them." Zhongli almost seemed reluctant to say it. He knew how close Childe was to them but he didn't feel comfortable being more than 6 feet close to them.

"Well, it started with Pulcinella. He is my senior who graduated a while ago. Now he helps me take care of my siblings while I'm here. He introduced me to everyone else but I agree with you. Only Signora, Arlecchino, Scara, Columbina and him are the ones I like. Capitano, the one who never shows his face, is the only one who seems to care for me as a junior but... his methods are a bit, well, twisted." Childe took his time to explain to Zhongli, who seemed to grow more at ease with each word.

"Thank you, Childe." Zhongli gave him a soft smile as he turned his head to look at the ginger.

"No problem babe." Childe winked at Zhongli which gave him a small chuckle of amusement.

"So, lovebirds, what the tea now?" Kaeya snuck up behind the 2 and surprised them by slapping both of their backs.

"What the hell Kaeya?!" Childe stood up and ran after the blueberry head.

"Idiots." Diluc sat next to Zhongli as he stared at the 2 figures disappearing from view.

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