Chapter Text
Zhongli woke up that morning at the sound of his alarm clock.
That day would have marked Zhongli’s first day of his last high school year. He wasn’t really too excited at the idea of going to school.
He liked studying and he had really high grades, but he didn’t really like any of his classmates and found the idea of having to interact with them bothersome.
The only exception to this was Ajax.
Ajax was the apple of his eyes, his only friend and, most importantly, the only person that he will ever love unconditionally.
Ajax had always been the one thing that lighted up his days in this dark and depressing world, with his big joyous smile, gentle nature and soft features, the fact that he even had the chance to meet him in this life was a miracle. Ajax was his miracle, he had saved him from an utterly miserable life, made of loneliness and sadness.
Zhongli believed that he didn’t need anyone but Ajax by his side to be happy, even if he knew that he never could have had him as his lover, he was still happy about being able to be near him and to be his friend and his support.
During most of his childhood Zhongli had always been alone.
His parents didn’t really care that much for him, and they would leave him alone in their house for long periods of time.
This changed the day he met Ajax.
Zhongli and his family had just transferred to a different part of the Harbour, and he had just changed schools, which didn’t bother him particularly, since he didn’t like all that much his old classmates.
His dad would always reprimand him for not speaking with his other classmates and for his lack of social skills.
On his first day of school he had introduced himself to his class and the teacher had assigned him a seat in the last row near a boy with ginger hair, who had immediately enthusiastically introduced himself to him: “Hello I am Ajax, nice to meet you Zhongli” the child smiled at him. “I am very happy to finally have a desk mate! Usually I have to sit alone, I look forward to being able to get to know you better!”
During that lesson Zhongli had kinda understood why Ajax was always put in a desk alone, away from others. He talked a lot, and he was always distracted by something and it kinda made it difficult for Zhongli to pay attention. Ajax kept talking until the teacher noticed him being loud, scolded him and forced him to move his chair in the corner of the room, in order to sit alone.
Lunchtime had come, and, as Zhongli was about to get his tray of food, he realised that he had forgotten his lunch money at home. This made him briefly panic, until he felt a hand touch his shoulders, it was Ajax.
“Zhongli don’t you have money for your lunch?” the redhead asked him
“N-no…” Zhongli was ashamed to admit that he had forgotten his money.
“Me neither!” Ajax said smiling “That is why I usually bring it from home! My mom has prepared me some goulash with rice and an apple, if you want I can give you some!”
Zhongli, later down the years, had discovered that the reason why Ajax always brought food from home was because his family had financial issues, which, in retrospect, made him feel embarrassed about having eaten his food that one time, since Zhongli’s family was well off.
Zhongli initially refused Ajax’s proposal, but upon his insistence and the fact that he was actually incredibly hungry, he ended up accepting. This had led the two to sit together again, this time in order to eat and Zhongli had found out that he actually really enjoyed Ajax’s company.
The boy knew a lot about weapons and fighting and briefly mentioned the fact that he really liked Kung fu, which had made Zhongli light up, because he was interested in martial arts too.
In the little time they had spent together Zhongli had finally found someone to which he actually liked talking to.
The bell rang, which signified the end of their lunch break and of their very enjoyable conversation.
“Oh, I guess we have to go back to class! It was nice finally being able to have lunch with someone!”
“What do you mean? don’t you usually have lunch with other people?”
“oh… I try to but nobody ever wants me at their table…”
Zhongli was surprised to hear that “why?”
“OI don't know…”
“Well they must be really weird, because I think you are neat!”
Ajax seemed to light up at that, he took Zhongli’s hands between his own and said: “you really think that?!”
Zhongli blushed deeply at that and meekly nodded as a response.
“That is so cool!” exclaimed Ajax “Does this mean that we are friends?”
“F-friends?”
“Yeah!”
“I have never had a friend before”
“Really?! then we are similar, Zhongli!”
That was the beginning of their friendship, a friendship that had lasted since they were both 8 and had lasted for the next 10 long years.
Since that day Zhongli and Ajax became really close with each other and developed an incredibly remarkable bond. They always had lunch together, played together and they always helped each other with school work.
Studying with Ajax Zhongli had discovered that the boy wasn’t stupid, he could, in fact, memorize a lot of different notions and he was good at math, it’s just that he always had trouble concentrating and doing one thing at a time, and got bored and distracted quickly, especially if he disliked the subject he was studying.
They also kept communicating during classes, but instead of talking they would usually write messages to each other on a notebook that they would pass around on their desk. This method, however, wasn't infallible, since they once got discovered by one of their teachers.
Studying with Ajax had brought some major advantages to the red head because his grades passed from being mediocre at best, to actually being good. This had led Childe to often invite Zhongli over to his house in order to play and study, this had given the chance to Zhongli to be able to actually meet Ajax’s family.
Ajax's family, contrary to his own, was rather huge: he had an older sister, an older brother and a younger sister that was still a toddler and his grandma lived with his family, and as the years passed the number of family members would only grow, since his mother would give birth to another two children in the next few years.
Zhongli was astounded by how different their family was from his own : first he was an only child, born out of a marriage that had been of convenience, secondly while Ajax’s family was warm and welcoming, his own was cold. Zhongli’s parents always preferred to drop him to a babysitter than to spend actual time with him.
Then there was the fact that Ajax’s family was poor, contrary to his own, they struggled a lot financially, which explained one of the reasons Ajax actually got bullied: his poverty.
Their elementary school had been a private one, usually frequented by rich kids of important people, just like Zhongli, and, apparently the other kids had quickly noticed the fact that Ajax’ school supplies weren’t always really good, and that both his Rucksack and his uniform were his older brother’s old ones and that he owned a lot of things that were second hand; Ajax also never bought food at school and always brought lunch from home and that, weirdly enough, had become another reason for the children to pick upon him.
Zhongli remembered an instance in which a kid had actually stolen Ajax’s lunch and thrown it on the floor, which had led Zhongli to punch that kid and to get suspended for that. That hadn’t been neither the first, nor the last instance in which Zhongli would pick up a fight with another kid for Ajax’s own sake. Even through his middle school and sometimes even high school years he sometimes found himself fighting people who had picked up on his friend.
The fact that all the other kids seemed to pick up on Ajax, led Zhongli to basically not talk to them and to despise them to no end. His only friend was Ajax, and it only needed to be Ajax, nobody else mattered for Zhongli.
As years went by he got proceedingly more and more attached to Ajax, until, by the time they were both in middle school, he realised he actually loved the other boy. Zhongli loved Ajax and nobody else mattered for him, not his classmates, not his parents, no one.
However there was one little problem: Zhongli didn’t know if Ajax liked boys or not.
The fact that Ajax’s family was actually really homophobic and intolerant also didn’t help to assess whether or not his friends were gay.
Ajax himself didn’t seem to have a problem with gay people, but his family sure did.
Zhongli tried various times to try to understand if the other boy actually liked him as much as he did, but Ajax, even though he was his best friend, was often unreadable to him.
He would often tell him how important of a person he was to his life, but he would always call him “friend” or “comrade”.
Zhongli wanted more, he really wanted more from Ajax, but he decided that he would have waited, he wanted to wait till him and Ajax were both 18 in order to actually confess his feelings to him, and this year they both would have become adults. Zhongli was really excited, he intended to confess to him on the first day of school, and he would have told Ajax how he really felt about him. About the fact that he loved him, about the fact that he wanted to marry him.
Zhongli didn’t really care about the rumors that all the other classmates were spreading about them being gay, he didn’t really even care about what those phony people thought at all, he only cared about what Ajax thought of him, everyone else could go to hell.
Zhongli knew this was probably neither normal nor healthy, but he couldn’t care less, all he really wanted from life was to finish university, marry Ajax, and then live with him together for the rest of his life using his family money.
He would have pampered Ajax and made sure that the other had everything he ever wanted and needed.
He would have done that and more for Ajax, because he was the love of his life and the person that mattered the most to Zhongli in the whole world.
Zhongli got out of bed, went to eat breakfast, showered and then he put on his uniform and went out of his house and walked towards Ajax’s one. They always went to school together every morning since they lived close to each other.
Even though Zhongli’s house was only 15 minutes away from Ajax’s one, their home couldn’t have been more different. Zhongli’s family was small, since there were only 3 family members, but their house was extremely big; on the contrary Ajax lived in a really small apartment alongside his 3 little siblings and his parents; Ajax didn’t have his own room and slept on the couch in the living room.
This would often lead Zhongli to actually invite Ajax to sleep over at his house. It was always delightful for Zhongli to just see Ajax sleep, he looked so cute while sleeping.
Zhongli reached Ajax’s house and knocked on the door, he was greeted by Ajax’s mom.
“Zhongli! it is so good to see you!” she hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks “Ajax is late, like always, but you can wait for him if you want”
“that is no problem, but if we don’t get out now we are probably gonna be late”
“mmh… then I am gonna call him” The woman called for Ajax and started yelling at him in snezhnayan. Zhongli’s knowledge of that language was limited, but he could recognise all the swear words that the lady was yelling.
Ajax replied to her in snezhnayan and then he came outside of his room. his hair was unbrushed, his shirt was unbuttoned and he hadn’t tied up his tie. “hello Zhongli, Ajax greeted him with a big smile.
“Ajax you look like shit” said Ajax’s mom “come here lemme at least fasten your tie” she did that and then the two boys immediately ran out of the house because they were late for school.
“I am sorry Zhongli, you always come late because of me” said Ajax while they were running.
“It’s no problem, really, i like walking with you to school” Zhongli replied
“Yeah but if you didn’t have me around you would actually come in time”
If i didn’t have you around I would probably die.
That was what Zhongli thought and what he wanted to say, but instead he said: “Maybe I would still arrive late at school, who knows!”
They arrived in front of the school gates and went into the building. Their school was one of the most prestigious in all of the harbour and it was a school for rich kids. Ajax had been able to get into that school thanks to a scholarship which Zhongli had helped him study for; even tho Ajax’s parents had to spent significantly less for his school thanks to the scholarship, the school fees were still pretty expensive for Ajax’s parents, which put the redhead under constant pressure regarding his grades.
They were able to reach their class before the beginning of the lesson ,luckily, and they sat in the back of the classroom.
“I am actually excited about this school year. I hope this is finally the year i’ll be able to make new friends.” said Ajax smiling.
“... make friends? but you already have me as your friend”
“Yeah I know Zhongli, I would like to have other friends besides you, you know. I sometimes feel lonely”
“Am I not enough for you?”
“N-no it’s not that, Zhongli, you are a good friend, it's just…”
Their conversation was swiftly interrupted by one of their classmates “Oh Tartaglia are you and your boyfriend quarrelling? That's a shame, you are such a good couple!”
“We are not a couple!”
That other guy laughed at that “Oh is that so? Then why are you two always together? I bet you are a real cockslut in bed, Ajax”
“Better to be a cockslut than to be an idiot like you” said Zhongli with venom.
The other guy got up and approached Zhongli “Do you want to get beaten up that badly?!”
Zhongli wasn’t afraid of that guy and he didn’t care about him at all, so if by hurting him he could have benefitted Ajax he would have done it. Before he could beat the shit out of that guy, however, Ajax got up and got between them.
“I don’t think anyone here wants to end up being suspended the first day of school, especially for a petty reason like this”
The other guy glared both at Ajax and at Zhongli, he stared at them for a second and then he finally backed off from them returning to his seat.
They sat back to their seats too, however, during class, Ajax seemed to have gotten rather upset at Zhongli and the brunette didn’t understand why. Was it because he had insulted the guy? Was it because he was actually ready to beat the shit out of him? Had he said something wrong?
They stayed silent throughout the classes till the bell rang and lunchtime came. Ajax sprinted immediately out of the classroom without saying anything to Zhongli.
“A-Ajax, please wait for me!” Zhongli ran after Ajax, but the more Zhongli ran, the more the redhead seemed to want to get away from him.
“Ajax, don’t go so fast! Why are you so upset?”
Ajax stopped all of a sudden and looked back at Zhongli.
“Why do you always have to do that?”
“Do what?”
“are you stupid, Zhongli? Why do you always get into fights to defend me? It's frustrating!”
“Well it’s because we are friends! I would be a terrible friend if I didn't defend you!”
“Yeah but every time you do that people end up thinking that we are some sort of couple or something!”
Hearing that made Zhongli sad. Did Ajax hate that much the idea of them as a couple? Would then confessing his feelings to him as he had planned previously lead to an ugly rejection or, even worse, the end of their friendship?
“Is that what you are worried about? Some insignificant rumours?” Truth be told, those rumours weren’t completely far off from the truth, since Zhongli was completely and utterly in love with Ajax.
“Those rumours aren’t insignificant, Zhongli! They are the reason we don’t have friends! And they are the reason why everyone laughs at us!”
Zhongli was startled by that “i have you as a friend that is enough for me”
Ajax didn’t seem happy with that answer “why is this so hard for you to understand Zhongli? the less friends we have, the more time we spend with each other, the more time we spend with each other, the more people will think we are gay!”
Would Ajax have hated him if he knew that he was gay? That he indeed had feelings for him and that in reality he wanted to make those rumours into something real?
“And why would you care about what they think?! They are all douchebags anyways!”
“Ugh! whatever! Let’s go and grab lunch”
After that conversation they had lunch together semi-normally. They talked with each other, but their conversation was really awkward, with Zhongli basically talking about everything he had in mind in order to try to cheer Ajax up and the redhead barely responding to him.
The bell then rang again and they went back to class and Zhongli began to feel very guilty about what had happened previously.
He didn’t want to make Ajax’s life harder because of his own selfishness and, looking back at it, he had acted in a really stupid way, provoking a guy and almost getting into a fight on the first day of school.
He also felt sad for what Ajax had previously said. Was his plan of confessing to him even a good one? Was he even making the right choice?
He couldn’t back up now, he had waited several years in order to be able to confess his true feelings towards the ginger, but what if that resulted in the end of their friendship? Would Ajax really have ended a friendship that had lasted almost 10 years now?
Maybe Zhongli could just bottle up his feelings for a tad bit more, that seemed like a better idea than having Ajax walk away from his life altogether, but could he really go on like this for much longer?
It was probably obvious to everyone but Ajax himself how much Zhongli adored him, so how much time would Ajax have taken to realise that Zhongli harboured feelings towards him? Zhongli couldn’t bring himself to imagine Ajax realising that the brunette loved him and walking away from his life.
Ajax and Zhongli came back to class and sat at their desks, their history professor came in and began talking about the history of the archon war and about other Liyue legends. Zhongli would have normally enjoyed the lesson, if it wasn't for the fact that his mind was filled with thoughts about the conversation he had previously with Ajax.
Zhongli quickly wrote down a note, which he then slid towards Ajax. The note read: “I am sorry for the way I acted this morning, it was completely uncalled for”.
Ajax read the note and wrote a reply: “I should be apologising too, I treated you too harshly”
Zhongli felt incredibly relieved after reading Ajax’s note: he really didn’t like the idea of having upset Ajax, and he was happy that the redhead wasn’t mad anymore”
Ajax quickly grabbed a piece of paper and wrote him another note, on which there was written: “I have something important to tell you privately, please meet me after school in the backyard”
Zhongli quickly wrote a reply back “I have something to tell you too”. Zhongli’s mood became far better than before and he began feeling hopeful again about the fact that he planned to confess to his best friend. Childe now wasn’t angry at him anymore and had accepted his apology. Even if Ajax’s response to his confession would have been no, he would have still been sure that Ajax would have allowed Zhongli to at least stay by his side. He would have been still happy with that, as long as his beloved was happy.
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“I think we should stop seeing each other.” Ajax said.
The rain was quickly falling onto Zhongli, drop after drop, onto his school uniform, just as the word was crumbling around him.
“W-what? Why?...” Zhongli said, with a trembling voice.
“It’s better this way, Zhongli. I think we have become too much codependent and attached to each other, to the point where it is unhealthy for both of us”
All of Zhongli’s worst fears had just materialised and they had hit him like a truck. He was confused, he would have expected that kind of reaction after his confession, not before even being able to declare his love.
“Ajax I don’t understand. Is there a problem with the way I act? I can correct my behaviour if you want, just tell me what to do and I-”
Ajax interrupted him: “I am sorry Zhongli, but I do think our relationship is quite toxic”
Zhongli was flabbergasted by that statement. Toxic? How could the best thing that had ever happened to his life be so crudely be described as being “toxic”?
“What do you mean with that? I do not understand…”
“It means that I am tired of being around you”
Tears began to spill from Zhongli’s eyes and to mix with the rain that was steadily falling upon him.
Zhongli’s world completely crumbled and imploded onto itself after that statement. Ajax did not want him around, not even as a friend.
Who knows for how long Ajax had felt that way, who knows for how long he had wanted Zhongli to disappear from his life, who knows for how long he had hated Zhongli.
Without saying another word, Zhongli took his bag and ran away under the rain.