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I don’t know how to help it, sometimes I just want to go absolutely batshit insane. Maybe what’s even worse is that I really do believe it’s completely justified. I’ve been stuck here for 3 years. I’ve saved 5 nations from their various crises, including going to jail while completely innocent, winning a literal war, and a brawl with an Archon (twice!). All for the sake of finding my brother, who promptly ditched me after I did find him. I’ve fought more dragons than I can count, and I’m sure the number of stupid Harbingers I’ve gone up against is getting pretty close to matching it. If we count the semi-regular spars I’ve had with Tartaglia, it’d be even higher.
If the Fatui are such a nuisance, you may think, why would I put myself through the trouble of keeping one as an acquaintance, let alone one of their highest ranking members? Surely, that would exhaust me even more. And in a way, you’d be right. Childe is exhausting. He’s cunning yet idiotic, bold but somehow... gentle? A kid that crawled out of the Abyss half-monster, and yet so incredibly fragile and human. That's to say nothing of his stores of energy, as limitless as the money in the Northland Bank. He never stops asking for an ass-whooping.
And I keep taking him up on it. It started off just to humour him, an attempt to lessen his pestering, which did not work. Instead, it just seemed to encourage him even more. But as the years have worn on, and the exhaustion sometimes simmers into a well concealed rage, my reasons have changed. I remember the first time they changed, just after my second Lantern Rite. That year had been utterly exhausting, and Lantern Rite had gone from an enjoyable holiday with a few extra commissions to a glorified chore-fest. Childe’s invite to spar came at the perfect time, the frustration of doing all this work for no payoff, not just for Lantern Rite, but all of Teyvat, simmering in my blood. I needed to let it out, and on someone who I knew could take it.
Take it, he did, with his stupid little smirk. That spar was ugly. He had a huge windburn up his right arm for weeks, never mind his dislocated knee, and all the blood. It took forever to get the stains out of my dress. It was brutal. It was perfect. Watching his face transform from that stupid smirk to pinched brows, little pants as I wore him down. The grimaces, and the shock, the way he lay flat on the ground, eyes closed, chest heaving, looking far more relaxed than he ought to have at the end of the fight. That stupid little glint in his eye as I sat him up, and his small smile afterward.
It worked. I felt much better after letting the rage out. After we patched him up, and I was almost too exhausted to walk back to Liyue Harbour, he still had energy to pull me with him. Sometimes, I think he purposely tried to provoke me into that same rage, hungry for another full-blown battle. All those stupid Fatui on Watatsumi, stupid Signora, stupid Scaramouche, the Doctor, all of it. Most of it he didn’t even have anything to do with, truthfully, but he's the type of guy to push and push until I’d whirl around and deck him.
I remember our spar after I found Aether. Seeing him whirl around the area like the Abyss Herald shocked me, one of the only times in my life I've frozen in battle. He got close enough to slash my whole torso, the loss of blood somehow restarting my brain. I felt frustration from watching Aether slip away, and disappointment in myself for freezing. and fear at how poorly that could have gone had it been anyone but Childe. And then I only saw red, taking the victory from him that I had just lost. Sobbing with my sword to his neck, digging it in further until I saw a red against my blade, and collapsing. I don’t remember much, other than he didn’t even seem fazed. He just talked and talked and rubbed my back until I calmed down. Bastard.
I remember when he came for a brief visit to Sumeru, when I was walking him through the rainforest, and we ended up in a spar, no elements, no weapons, just fists and legs and teeth. The iron tang in my mouth as I drew blood from his shoulder with my teeth, rolling around with elbows and knees and pure, unadulterated violence. I remember him pinned beneath me in the mud, silly orange hair slicked against his face with sweat in the humidity, and the absolute mess he made trying to get back up, pulling me back down into the mud with him.
I whoop his ass every time, and yet he keeps coming back. Clearly he’s figured it out. Clearly he knows none of the anger is about him, or his stupid hair, or his stupid smirk, or those lightless eyes, or that energy, or his chuckle, or that godawful little slip of skin at the bottom of his shirt that I’d love to poke the tip of my sword into, or that silly little tan line that goes with it when the shirt comes off. He confuses me, and drives me up the wall, but none of the rage belongs to him, yet he takes it anyway, asks for it even. He is a nuisance and a menace and he gives incredible hugs, even when he’s sticky with sweat. He doesn’t get it, doesn’t have any idea what I’m going through, and he never stops trying, and I hate him so much. So much. And I tell him every time I beat him. Stupid man. He always just smiles up at me. Stupid white teeth. And he laughs, like a beautiful bell and it's the worst thing I've ever heard.
“I love you too, Lumine.”