Chapter Text
Childe feels lost for months. He goes about his Fatui work, numb and disillusioned. Nothing holds his attention for long and he’s annoyed by the company of everyone he tries to spend time with. There’s an aching hole in his chest, and he doesn’t know why.
It’s like he’s lost something incredibly dear, but has no idea what. Sometimes, he lays awake at night staring at his ceiling trying to remember. A face at the back of his mind. A voice that he hears distantly in his dreams. And a name just on the tip of his tongue.
It plagues him, making him desperately yearn for something that he can’t recall.
An assignment in Sumeru is issued, and Childe takes it without thinking. He wants to go somewhere far away, and break out of whatever lonely curse has fallen over him.
It’s there that he sees the most beautiful stranger. It’s late, and Childe is out getting dinner at a local, small restaurant when he finds him, sitting across the hall from him in the low lighting.
Childe doesn’t know him, but at the same time he swears he does.