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“Keqing, this is getting ridiculous.”
She turns towards the sound of the voice, a slight frown marring her brow. It takes her a moment to realize the figure standing in the darkness is Kaeya, the flickering lamplight casting a yellow-hued shadow on his tall frame. Hands shoved in his pocket, he looks at her with something like pity written onto his features.
It makes Keqing sick.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbles, looking away from him and back to the docks. From the sounds of it, the last ship seems to have already pulled in for the night, the few soldiers that once took refuge on it now standing amongst the loved ones that wait for them.
She feels her heart twist in her chest.
Kaeya comes to stand next to her, lips pressed into a thin line. “Keqing, you know this isn’t making it any better,” he tells her, as if the truth is supposed to help her. “Even if you come here every night without fail, it doesn't mean he’s going to come back,” he presses, not bothering to look at her. Her hands tremble where they rest clasped in her lap. “You’re only hurting yourself.”
She doesn't answer him, instead, she chooses to watch as a man is received by his teary-eyed wife and ecstatic children.
“And what if he does come back, Kaeya?” she asks, and she loathes the way her voice shakes. “What if he comes back and I am not here for him? What then? What will he think of me? Where will he go?”
“And even then, Keqing, there’s no proof he’ll come back with this group of men!” he snaps, as if he is at his wit's end. “Even then, there’s no proof that he’s even alive!”
Keqing flinches away from him, brows creased. “Don’t say that,” she says, voice trembling even if her words are mellow and measured. “Don’t say that like you’ve lost all hope that he will return!”
Silence as the moths continue to buzz beside old lamps, the wind causing the trees and foliage to sway back and forth against the midnight coloured sky. Kaeya does not give her an answer, and she, for once, is thankful for his lack of charisma, a somber expression on his face.
From where she stands, his eye patch hides his true feelings from view.
And so instead of providing her with a response, Kaeya wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side as he bends to kiss the crown of her head.
“Your hope is enough for the both of us,” he lies, and like a fool, she believes him.
FIN