Chapter Text
Zhongli gritted his teeth in pure annoyance as the final credits rolled across his computer screen. All those months- wasted. And for what? A less than five-minute interaction with his beloved before he was whisked away and forced to choose who he wanted to be with.
When in reality, the only person he had wanted to be with, wasn’t even a choice at all. It was an outrage. If Zhongli had been in his youth, he would’ve busted a hole through his poor computer. Thankfully, he had more control over his emotions. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a furious fire dwelling deep inside of him.
It had all started a while back. Back when Zhongli had been a bit more..simple. After a long business trip to Inazuma, the Ceo had originally intended to walk the streets of Inazuma city to see the sights. It had been a while since he had last visited, after all, a long while. Which was why he had ended up becoming greatly overwhelmed with all the changes he had been seeing which caused him to quickly flee into a vacant store.
Not only was it much quieter inside, but it piqued his interest as well. ‘A gaming store? I’m certain Xiao would appreciate this more than me.’ Zhongli thought as he eyed up the selection. His nephew was a bit more advanced technologically wise, the older man for once regretted sending the green-haired male off on a much-needed vacation.
Now he would have to figure out what exactly anything was in this place on his own.
Mindlessly he grabbed a random copy of a game and decided to start from there. “Love-Impact?” Zhongli murmured as he read the Inazuman script. It had been a while since he had read, let alone studied, the language but it seemed about right. Curious, he looked around, seeing if he could spot an employee.
“Excuse me?” His voice rang out for a few moments before Zhongli’s unconscious prayers had been answered as a pink-haired woman had popped up from behind.
“Yes?”
Even Zhongli ended up flinching in slight surprise before turning around.
“Yes, I was wondering what the price was for this game, it doesn’t say here.” He handed the woman his potential purchase.
“I see..”. She said quietly to herself before speaking. “It seems it is your lucky day sir. This game is currently on sale for 1,000 mora.”
It wasn’t as though money was necessarily a problem for Zhongli, considering the small amount of pocket money he had brought with him on his little endeavor, this had ended up being a blessing.
“Would you still be interested, sir?”
The man quickly nodded his head, he had nothing to lose if he ended up not enjoying the game in the end. He could pass it down to Xiao or Ganyu.
“Let me ring you up right away then.”
After paying for his game, he was about to excuse himself from the store when the last few words from the employee caused him to stop in his tracks.
“Please be careful sir, there have been a few accidents that have happened to those who were unsatisfied with the game.” She warned lowly.
“I’ll keep that in mind Ms-“ his eyes ended up focusing on the woman’s name tag, “Yae.”
He was met with a tight smile in response and Zhongli took that as a sign to be on his way. He hadn’t understood the woman’s warning, but he did now. Anyone would’ve gone crazy with the ending he was given. The game was crappy in itself; it was definitely worth the 1,000 mora price but his sweet Childe had made it bearable.
Until even he couldn’t bear to defend such an atrocity any longer. Childe had slowly started from being one of the most recurring characters in the game to the least in a month. As many characters were introduced and the “plot” continued to thicken, there was no need for the protagonist’s male childhood best friend to make a daily appearance anymore.
Not when the protagonist could live a rather promiscuous life and wake up in a different bedroom every day. Zhongli had attempted to derive from the route but to no avail, it seemed the game was dead-set on pushing for the protagonist to make progress with at least one dateable character.
Which forced Zhongli to sit through several hours of poorly written smut and simply terrible voice acting. He debated on leaving an angry review of the game wherever he could in retaliation but realized that it would be too risky.
Now, where did this leave him? After finishing the game, he had two choices: start over the game in a desperate attempt to see if there was a hidden route he hadn’t triggered to be with his beloved redhead, or simply shut his computer off.
After careful consideration he decided to go with the first route first thing tomorrow, already making plans to call up Ganyu and explain why exactly she needed to clear up his whole schedule for tomorrow again when suddenly a hidden scene appeared.
“You know comrade..this whole school year has been rather lonely. It seemed like every day you’ve been running off with a different person.” Childe said, pouting cutely. Zhongli would’ve gushed if it wasn’t for the serious connotations in the other male’s voice.
“Ah, but don’t worry about me, comrade. While you’ve been running around, I ended up getting a girlfriend-“
“No.”
A woman suddenly appeared on screen next to Childe, happily clinging to his arm as the redhead sheepishly continued with a slight brush on his cheeks.
“Now we can go on double dates with each other-“
“No-“
“See you didn’t leave me behind. I’m right behind you..buddy.”
This was the match that ended up lighting the fire.
Zhongli was praised for not letting his emotions get the best of him but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Proof of that was the giant hole through the screen, and his bloodied fist-shaking slightly.
He could deal with the unnecessary large cast.
He could deal with the generic and otherwise boring plot.
Hell, he could even deal with the pay-to-win system.
But some things..were just simply taken too far. Not only was Childe completely neglected throughout the whole game. But the protagonist was so out of touch with his supposed “best friend” and reality, he hadn’t even realized the other had ended up gaining a girlfriend.
And apparently, so was Zhongli as he had been in much of blind rage, he hadn’t realized his disk had ended up being crushed to smithereens as it seemed the Ceo had unintentionally done more than just smash a hole through the computer.
“Childe!” He hurriedly moved his hand to reach for the few pieces of the disk he could find, but in his desperation, he had ended up knocking over the glass of wine he had been drinking onto the computer. Osmanthus, to be exact, but that was beside the point.
It seemed this whole situation had caused Zhongli to be so out of it, he had ended up forgetting the one main rule Xiao had told him when using a computer. Never spill liquid on it, especially one near an open socket. Perhaps the shock of getting officially friend-zoned had completely diluted his brain cells.
But the Ceo could care not for such useless thoughts. His final regret was not looking up walkthroughs online like Xiao had suggested before to see if Childe’s route was even possible in the end.
In the end… this was not the end.
Soft light shined in his face as he snapped open his eyes, greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling.
“Hey comrade, wake up! You’re going to be late. Don’t blame me if you end up getting yelled at by the professor.”
This- was this real?
Zhongli shot up and scrambled to open the door, the person of his dreams was right behind it. After his poor attempt at pushing open the door, the door opened from the other side thanks to Childe’s efforts.
“It’s a pull door..seriously, are you okay? You don’t look well.”
“My apologies, I do feel a bit under the weather.”
Zhongli managed to rasp out. He had no idea what was happening, nor how he had gotten there. All he knew was that Childe was right in front of him in all of his glory. From his auburn hair down to his-
“Hm, well, take care of yourself. If you feel like staying home today I’ll be willing to take notes for you. My handwriting is a little crappy though.” Childe said with a light laugh before turning around to leave, causing Zhongli’s gaze to drop downwards.
-other assets.
This was his Childe, alright. In fear he would wake up from whatever wonderful dream he was in, he chose not to question anything. Choosing to trail behind the redhead rather contently.
“You seem like you’re in a good mood today, so I’m glad I don’t have to worry too much. Are you ready for our last year of high school? I don’t know about you, but I feel like something is going to be different this year, I can feel it.”
Archons, Zhongli hoped not. He was perfectly content with staying with Childe for the whole year and possibly longer. But, one thing he noted before his mini prayer was the fact that Childe’s dialogue was extremely similar to the one in the game. Other than his earlier incident, he remembered each word, line from line.
(It wasn’t as though Childe had much dialogue..so it wasn’t much of a feat.)
This meant that if he was currently remembering the game correctly, it meant he was still on track for the original storyline. Meaning, the first character the protagonist was supposed to meet was coming up extremely-
“Kyaa!”
-soon.
“Woah! Look at that, I think someone got hurt. Looks like we’ll have to help her!”
Zhongli took a disinterested glance at the purple-haired woman who was currently sitting in a dirty mud puddle. Despite the fact the water wasn’t even an inch deep, her clothes were completely wet and see-through.
“I think she’s fine on her own-“
“We have to help her! She looks hurt!”
“Childe-“
“The comrade I know would never turn their back on someone in need..why are you just standing there?”
All of a sudden a small screen appeared above Childe’s head.
TR ↓25
Current hearts with Character:
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
Zhongli's eyes widened as he stared pointedly above Childe’s perfect head. He recognized these systems: the Trust Rank and Heart Meter. Drowning out Childe’s cries and the girl’s shrieks his mind quickly drew up several conclusions.
1.) Because Childe even had a Heart Meter, it meant it was possible to trigger a route with him.
2.) If such a system was being used here, he wondered if other attributes of the game were available to be of use to him.
3.) His trust rank had dropped when he didn’t immediately interact with another character in Childe’s presence. Meaning, to even have a good relationship with his soon-to-be lover he would have to make progress in the game.
Meaning, he was unable to fully deviate from his role as a harem protagonist.
To win Childe over, he would have to do the bare minimum of raising each character’s Heart Meter and Trust Rank.