Collusion

Chapter 2: Something Fishy

SUMMARY

It’s her fault, Lumine knows it, but not a single cell in her body regrets what she did. She would do it again if it meant a sliver of hope in finding her brother Aether. That’s why she joined the Knights of Favonius in the first place.

It’s not the first time Lumine has to come in to work on a weekend. Crime—and terrorism, especially—do not take breaks, unfortunately for her.

When she receives a call from Kaeya, Lumine knows to dress up for work while talking to him.

“Who is it this time?” Lumine asks, her phone wedged between her ear and shoulder.

“Only the King of Liyue, Rex Lapis,” Kaeya answers in a casual tone, like they’re talking about someone getting married and not someone who literally just died.

It takes a few seconds for the words to register. She holds her phone up to her other ear, making sure she heard it right. “Wait, the Rex Lapis?”

Kaeya clicks his tongue impatiently. “Just get to the office. We’re having a briefing.”

She’s late. It’s not her first time, either, but the looks on their faces as she enters the conference room are enough to have her ears burning.

Lumine sits next to Kaeya, who gives her a look, but she only rolls her eyes at him. On Kaeya’s other side is Eula, their boss, focused and attentive.

In front of them is a tall, dark-haired woman discussing the details of the attack. The first thing Lumine notices about her is her sense of style. She’s from the intelligence office in Liyue, but she did not dress the part at all. The lady looked more like a runway model with her asymmetrical short haircut, her designer jacket, and black lacy corset. Not the business casual they were all dressed in. She’s beautiful in a terrifying way, like a boa constrictor wrapping itself around to squeeze the life out of you before devouring you whole, and you’d thank her for it, kind of beautiful.

Kaeya elbows her and gives her a look again, and this time Lumine deciphers it as: Stop ogling.

Lumine shrugs, but decides to actually listen in.

“The team is still investigating for any remains. The bedroom was burnt to a crisp, so it’s unlikely anyone could have survived that. But we’re considering every option,” the woman says, sliding across the desk photos of the castle’s bedroom scorched to black. If Lumine didn’t know it was a bedroom, she’d have assumed it was a whole fancy sitting room because of how spacious it is. It’s a king’s bedroom after all, so it only fits.

“No sprinklers?” Lumine blurts out.

The woman looks at her like it was an incredulous question. “Yes, and if it had been an ordinary fire, the sprinklers would have snuffed it out. But clearly, it was strong and induced.” She pauses, as if waiting for any follow-up questions, then she continues, “The castle’s foundational walls had contained the fire to the one room. No suspects yet, but we have a witness who called in the fire.”

“So the witness fled to Mondstadt,” Eula says, leaning over the table. “And you’ll want us to provide witness protection.”

The woman nods. “We don’t have a description yet, but we have a name: Zhongli. From the employee records, it seems he’s a groundskeeper. A new one.”

“I’ll talk to our contacts at the airport and the border and see if they’ve intercepted any Zhongli.” The name rolls off Eula’s tongue with a thick Mondstadt accent.

“Thanks. Let’s keep in touch,” the woman says, bowing slightly and gingerly offering her business card to Eula with both hands. Lumine squints and reads the name ‘Yelan’.

“Thank you,” Eula stands, and Kaeya and Lumine follow suit as Yelan leaves the room.

Eula turns to Lumine, her icy stare giving Lumine a shiver down her spine. “See me in my office.”

As Eula leaves the room, Kaeya mouths, “You’re fucked.”

Lumine makes a face at him and mouths back, “Fuck off.”

Lumine takes her time walking to Eula’s office. This could be the end of her career, not that there was much of it in the first place. She’s doing her best, really, but it’s been difficult to keep up since her demotion. Her ego and ambition took a hit, and after that, it’s all she could do to keep herself mentally afloat. So yeah, she’s doing her best.

It’s her fault, she knows it, but not a single cell in her body regrets what she did. Lumine would do it again if it meant a sliver of hope in finding her brother Aether. That’s why she joined the Knights of Favonius in the first place.

Or more like, she drew just the right attention to her so they’d headhunt her. It was Kaeya’s idea, actually, to take up classes together on Khaenri’ahn language and history in college; it was an ethically questionable decision, even by her standards—considering that country’s controversial history, instigating a world war and whatnot—but she did what she had to do for Aether, to get an opportunity to investigate his disappearance.

Kaeya, on the other hand, did it for the flair and mystery of being a secret agent. Lumine still remembers his face when they found out their desk job isn’t really as glamorous and action-packed as the movies made it seem.

She stops by the door, takes a deep breath, and knocks, hoping for the best.

When Lumine enters Eula’s office, she doesn’t look up from the papers on her desk.

“You’re late, and at a time of an international crisis, no less.”

“It’s a Saturday.”

Eula lets out an exasperated sigh and looks up at her. “Don’t give me that attitude. Call Amber, see if she’s heard anything at the airport about the witness.”

Lumine waits for any additional orders, but Eula is just staring at her, like Lumine’s a puzzle piece and she can’t quite figure out where to put her.

“Viatrix,” Lumine winces at Eula using her last name, “this is a big case. Bigger than anything else our team has handled,” she says, her voice cold and stern. “I need you to work with me on this. No mistakes, no slipups. Please.”

God, is she that much of a fuck up now? It’s been a year—an entire year—and Eula still thinks of her like this. Indignation and resentment rises from her stomach, but she pushes it down. She needs this job.

“I’ll do my best,” Lumine quickly says before her voice breaks.

Eula purses her lips, like she’s about to say more, but sighs and dismisses her instead.

When she leaves the office, Kaeya is waiting with his arms crossed. “So?”

Lumine walks to her cubicle, and Kaeya follows along. “Not fired. Yet.”

“Hallelujah, what a miracle,” he says with a snicker.

“God, I’m this close,” she gestures, bringing her index finger and thumb together, leaving a minuscule space in between. “This close to quitting.” She knows she won’t, but if she had the choice? No hesitation, she’ll quit in a heartbeat.

“Take me with you,” he says and they both laugh.

“C’mon, let’s get some breakfast. I’m hungry.”

“That’s Zhongli. Z-H-O-N-G… Yeah, that’s right. Thanks, Amber.”

Lumine puts down her work phone. It’s time for the waiting game, a.k.a. doing her actual job, a.k.a. basically doing nothing but reading emails she has nothing to do with but she’s CC’ed in anyway, waiting for the bureaucratic puzzle pieces to come together, etcetera, etcetera. Sometimes they do cool stuff like witness protection and covert operations, but that’s pretty rare. And when that happens, it’s usually the field agents who take up the limelight, not the lowly desk-ridden people like them.

She pores through the news online, lazily scrolling down through articles about celebrities and who broke up with who—and really, is this what passes for news now?—when she reads an article about a disgraced detective in Inazuma who committed suicide. Apparently, he attempted to defame a police commissioner and, upon being found out, he killed himself before they could arrest him. This doesn’t surprise Lumine, considering the crazy high suicide rates in Inazuma.

Her brain’s conspiratorial gears start turning. There’s something fishy here, but Lumine can’t put her finger on it. If this is a common occurrence in Inazuma, why would it make international news? She reads the article again and again, trying to find something between the lines, any details that don’t add up, looks up other news sources, and finds nothing.

It will not be that easy to find a trail, she knows, because she has been investigating several other events like these: convincing suicides, seemingly random deaths, and the occasional sniper shot, but not once has she gotten a solid trail. Something to actually hold on to. Lumine has nothing but her gut feeling and a theory that’s loosely hung together by a pretty ribbon.

Lumine makes a mental note of this piece of news in her brain so she could mention this to Albedo later and bounce some ideas off him. Maybe ask him to do some deep web searching about it. Kaeya likes to call him their in-house hacker, but really, he’s just a regular IT guy with a penchant for conspiracy theories. Albedo appreciates that Lumine knows the difference between a hacker and an IT guy, so he’s usually more partial to doing Lumine a favor than Kaeya. Lumine suspects it’s just Kaeya’s way of being affectionate—which is just him teasing, really—but that kind of flirting isn’t going to get through to someone like Albedo. Not that she knows anything about the art of homosexual flirting, of course. Kaeya’s still the expert on that.

The news about Rex Lapis’ death is flooding the news sites. Seems they’ve finally released a statement. No other details except that he ‘passed away peacefully’. Everything else is paragraphs upon paragraphs of commemorating his memory and the good things he did for Liyue. Which is apparently a lot, with the way they’re buttering up his accomplishments, making it seem like every single citizen in Liyue owed their success to him.

He was king for—Lumine takes a second to look it up—a little more than a hundred years, so the people will probably just assume he died of old age. And that works out well for everyone involved, including their team.

Lumine dives into the rabbit hole and looks up Liyue’s history with Rex Lapis. It seems Liyue royals rarely make public appearances, and the last time they saw the king was around 40 years ago, during the Lantern Rite festival. Lumine wonders how a nation can be led by a chosen family you will probably never get a glimpse of in your lifetime. It’s like how religion works, she supposes. You just choose to believe they’re there. But having faith and keeping an entire country in order are two vastly different things.

There’s something fishy here. Something missing.

Or maybe she just doesn’t really understand the depths and intricacies of Liyuen culture.

Either way, Lumine needs to do more research on this. Again, she makes a mental note to do so, after they take care of a more pressing matter: finding the witness. That witness, Zhongli, might be the key to this.

Ugh, she doesn’t have the brain cells for this. She’s going to need Albedo.

Before she could dial his number, her phone rings.

“Hey, Amber. That was pretty quick.”

“Yeah, we found him. He’s currently being held in our office in Springvale.”

“Great, I’ll send security officers to transport him to Mondstadt proper.” Lumine is about to hang up when her mind decides on a brilliant idea. “Wait, where did you say your Springvale office was again?” She hastily writes down the address. “Perfect. Thanks, Amber.”

Lumine takes her coat and purse and is about to leave when Kaeya pops his head above the cubicle wall that separates them. “Hold up, Lu.” He gives her a once-over, narrowing his eyes at the purse and coat dangling on her arm. “Whatcha doing?”

“Uh… I’m going out?”

“Where?”

“Lunch?”

He stands up. “Without me?”

“Actually…” Lumine scans her brain for the closest, most plausible excuse she can find. “I’m meeting someone for lunch.”

“Ooh, a date?” Kaeya says, and for a moment Lumine is amazed he actually bought the excuse.

She nods. “Yeah.”

Kaeya leans over his cubicle wall, clearly intrigued. “Is that right? What’s the name of this lucky man, then?”

Lumine frantically looks around and decides on the first name her eyes land on. “Rex.”

Fuck.

Kaeya tries to stifle a laugh, but fails. “You’re such a terrible liar, Lumine. We both know you haven’t touched a single dating app since last year and we both know you’re headed for Springvale to see our lovely witness.”

“Nothing gets past you, huh?”

He shrugs. “You just need to get better at lying.”

“Whatever, I’m off. Are you coming with me?”

Kaeya smiles. “An illegal investigation under our boss’s nose? I’d love to join you, but I have an email I’m waiting for from the other department.”

“Cut the sarcasm, Kaeya.”

He holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m serious. I’m waiting for them to sign off on the translator for the witness.”

Oh, right. Lumine doesn’t speak Liyuen. Kaeya sees her pause and his lips curl into a smirk, looking like a cat that caught a mouse. “You didn’t forget that our dear witness doesn’t speak our language, right? And you remembered that we both don’t speak his language, right? Right?”

Lumine slaps her forehead. There goes that brilliant idea. “I forgot.”

“Amateur.”

“Ugh. Come on, let’s get some lunch.”

Lumine leaves her cubicle and waits for Kaeya to follow. Except he hasn’t left yet and is looking at Lumine like he wants to say something.

“Actually…” Kaeya says, a tinge of hesitation in his voice. “I’m meeting someone for lunch.”

Lumine gasps. “No. No way. Don’t tell me you finally asked him out?”

Kaeya pinches her arm. “Bitch, keep your voice down!” He exhales, and continues, “But yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I asked him to get lunch, and he said yes.”

Lumine couldn’t help but grin. “Perfect. Can you tell Albedo I need to bounce some ideas off him? Later after work is fine.”

“No.”

Lumine clasps her hands together, making the best puppy face she can. “Please, pleasepleaseplease—”

“Fine. I owe you one,” Kaeya says, “for introducing me to him.” He quickly blurts the last part out and his cheeks go red.

“Kaeya Alberich, are you actually blushing?”

He rolls his eyes. “Give me a break, Lumine Viatrix.”

“Okay, well, you two have fun.”

“What about you? Still going to Springvale?”

Lumine nods, putting on her coat. “The only words in Liyuen I know are ‘thank you’ and ‘your mom’s a horse.’” When Kaeya furrows his brow, Lumine adds, “Don’t ask. Just wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks, I’m going to need it.”

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