Why Does Nothing Happen

Chapter 1

Since returning from the Akademiya for your retreat to Mondstadt, you have felt a constant, heavy gaze boring through you. Though when you turned around, which has been often, you found no one. Each time, you felt a phantom touch.

"Seems like she's changed quite a bit," others remarked. Your hyper vigilance earned you more than a few concerned looks. To you, it was Mondstadt that changed. Never once during your life growing up have you felt like you were in any danger whenever you were within its walls, until now. The gaze fixated on you and never left.

Jean thought you were suffering a stalking incident. Plausible, sure. Poor Barbara suffered a multitude of those so there's definitely a precedent; Mondstadt with its atmosphere somehow enabled some people to think they're free to do anything. Abyss-related assumptions were ruled out because no traces were found on you.

And, if not stalking, maybe the gaze on your back was one of "those." The silent hope that fellow students would crumble from pressure just to further weed out the competition. Though Lesser Lord Kusanali pushed for great structural reforms, allowing the Akademiya to embody what it once was-a temple of wisdom-there were still a lot of issues.

You ran off to the Akademiya to prove that you're also someone capable of great things, only to be coldly shown the extent of your ordinariness. Having grown up with dear Jean and Diluc, who inherited a mountain of duty just by being born as an esteemed someone's child, you always thought there would come a time where you would face "the reason you were born." Whatever that represented.

You thought you were meant to become a Spantamad researcher when you showed sensitivity to the elements. It embarrassed you now that you thought you were an excellent student. That "great fate" you once thought you had was just a pipe dream.

At first, you tried to deny your own mediocrity. Like Sisyphus, you rolled up only to come tumbling down once more. You stopped counting after your twentieth proposal rejection. A numbing season went by just like that; you even ignored an invitation to celebrate Windblume just because you were buried under your books. Then, the news came.

The headline read: "Totally Triumphant! Knights of Favonius Expedition to Return After Curbing Wild Hunt Threat."

"Maybe I should visit Mondstadt," you mumbled, suddenly longing for your windswept homeland. After sending some letters and packing light luggage, you made the journey back.

Part of you regretted making that decision. A sharp gaze was crawling on your arms and back, with whispers of an unknown language filling your mind. Distant rattling, like wood, also echoed. Jean, this definitely wasn't just a stalker issue-not that you know exactly why you're feeling like this either.

You were the only one home. The rest of your family was celebrating the grand homecoming at the pub. They insisted for you to come but you made the excuse that you didn't like to drink, which was a lie. What kind of Mondstadter would you be without your alcoholism? You just didn't want to be seen by Diluc for now. It's been hard to talk to him since he departed the knights.

A stuffy and unpleasant sensation rose in your chest, threatening to break out. The gaze felt heavier than before. Of course you wanted help, but asking for it was like begging for humiliation. Especially when you didn't even know what caused this problem. Honestly, was this not just intense stress?

Pride and shame mixed together, and before you knew it, your feelings were flushed down by the wine you found stashed away. You were about to pour yourself your final glass when a man's voice yelled out.

It was quickly replaced by a loud thud on your door. Before you could even react, the same man begged, "Stop! Stop! Please, let me go! I'm sorry!"

Calm, the perpetrator taunted, "Ah, if every wrongdoing could be settled with an apology, then all of us would be out of a job. Don't you think so?"