  We consider a novel mechanism to realize exothermic dark matter with dark
mesons in the limit of approximate flavor symmetry in a dark QCD. We introduce
a local dark $U(1)'$ symmetry to communicate between dark mesons and the
Standard Model via $Z'$ portal by partially gauging the dark flavor symmetry
with flavor-dependent charges for cancelling chiral anomalies in the dark
sector. After the dark local $U(1)'$ is broken spontaneously by the VEV of a
dark Higgs, there appear small mass splittings between dark quarks,
consequently, leading to small split masses for dark mesons, required to
explain the electron recoil excess in XENON1T by the inelastic scattering
between dark mesons and electron. We propose a concrete benchmark model for
split dark mesons based on $SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R/ SU(3)_V$ flavor symmetry and
$SU(N_c)$ color group and show that there exists a parameter space making a
better fit to the XENON1T data with two correlated peaks from exothermic
processes and satisfying the correct relic density, current experimental and
theoretical constraints.
