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You were so honest.
But children were known for their honesty. Little white lies could be said here and there but you didn't dabble in those either. You were fearless with your thoughts and your emotions. Laughing so much that you held your stomach in pain, shedding so many tears and screaming at a bloody knee, giving hugs to anyone with all the strength your little arms could afford and sharing your smiles with the most mundane of flowers and insects.
Little Kaeya had a big secret. One that never allowed him to be so honest, so forth with his feelings. He always had to be careful. So he envied you. He disliked you. You two often fought, leaving a distressed Diluc to mediate things between you, but you never left his line of sight. Dawn Winery's doors were always open to you thanks to your old man saving the life of a young Crepus way on one of their adventures. So he'd often drop you here for weeks—abandon you—but you didn't seem to mind at all. It was aggravating.
"Your dad probably hates you and that's why he always leaves you."
He froze. For the first time, he saw it. You didn't start crying as you often do. You didn't shout in anger, waving your balled fists at him. You just… didn't smile anymore, you didn't react at all. Ah. You already knew.
He blinked as he found himself looking up at you from the ground. His left cheek flared in pain but all you did was watch him with that lifeless look. Then Diluc was on him, grabbing his collar and punching him again. He was shouting something and at one point, Elzer had come to separate the two.
You didn't visit for months after that.
The next time he saw you was at Diluc's hiding spot. Adelinde had sent you to fetch him as it was lunch time. You were alone, swinging your legs back and forth, sitting above a tiny cliff over the waters connecting Mondstadt and Liyue. He thought he had seen a naiad—a water spirit of some sort—at first. Confused as to why there would be anyone else but Diluc there. But then he recognised your hair, the little accessories on your clothes, that look.
You hadn't seen him. But you had sensed him. Nervousness masked your features as you snapped your head in his direction.
"Diluc? You there?"
Oh, how he had missed your sweet voice. Should he reveal himself to you? He had a long time to reflect on your last meeting and feel remorseful. Not because of his words though, no, those had been true and he wouldn't take them back. It was because he had pushed you away and that was the last thing he had wanted to do.
"I'm here!" The boy wonder was running towards you, carrying something hidden behind his back. You both watched from your spots respectively as he almost tripped, revealing something blue behind him but he easily regained his balance and hid it from view. You tilted your head to the side, your whole body following the notion and Kaeya had to bite his lower lip from jumping forward to pull you backwards. Or perhaps push you and see how you fare in the lukewarm waters, reaching out to him for help.
He handed you a bouquet—if he was being generous with the handpicked, oddly nipped flowers—of Small Lamp Grass, leaning to whisper something in your ear that made you giggle as you accepted them.
There was a lot he could have held against Diluc: his father's love, the fact he's the heir to something not only by name, his unparalleled skill, a talented to-be-knight—many things. Yet it wasn't until he saw him so close to you that he felt what would one call jealousy. You were like him after all.
He walked away, putting some space between him and you, and started calling Diluc's name out loud. He scrambled at his feet and waved you goodbye, leaving you all alone.
"Father called for you. Something about the Knights sending a proposal."
The redhaired boy hesitated at the door, obviously contemplating if he should go to his father's office first or go tell you he had some business to deal with first. Kaeya helped him with this short-lived dilemma.
"It's probably something small, he didn't seem angry or too excited about it." At that, he surmised it wouldn't take him long and went up the stairs. Kaeya smirked.
"What are you doing here, little naiad?"
"Waiting on your brother, of course." Brutal. Lovely. As always.
"Not surprised to see me?"
"You live here." Work with him, will you?
The silence was uncomfortable for only him it seemed. It didn't feel right to sit by you just yet, he hadn't earned it. So he stood a few steps behind you, your back facing him. You hadn't even turned once to look at him. Swallowing his pride, he attempted an apology:
"I'm sor—"
"My dad is dead."
He blinked in surprise, taken aback not by the interruption but by the nonchalance in your voice. Slowly, an anchor of dread cemented his feet to the ground, and he was slow to realize why. You kept staring off into the distance, legs hanging freely above the water surface. It was as if you had known something like this would happen sooner or later. Well, your father was known to be a risk-loving adventurer and many had hoped he would settle down after his child was born. But that didn't seem to have been the case.
"I'll be going to my aunt's in two days." Two days? That was too soon—this day was already almost over!
"So I came to say goodbye." No, no, no, no, Kaeya wasn't ready to part with you. You then turned around to smile at his crestfallen look, his true feelings coming to surface for once, something you obviously took joy in.
"Take care of him for me, will you?"
Kaeya did the opposite of that. When Crepus died, instead of offering comfort and act as a good brother would, he revealed his true colors and faced Diluc's justified rage. He lost his family for a second time and gained a vision out of it. Took Diluc's mantle as Cavalry Captain while he went on a revenge spree after their father's killers. And he came back permanently three years later, five years since you had left, acting his noble justice in the night time now.
You didn't write him any letters. You were just a mirage in the sea of his memories. One he often willingly let himself sink into when he didn't have alcohol to drown himself with—sometimes mixing the two even, but only on the coldest and loneliest of nights.
And so two more years passed until he saw you again.
It had been like any other day, filled with many boring knightly tasks, some aggravating to the point Kaeya had felt too tired to keep up his friendly pretenses. Such a day always led to a sweet end at Angel's Share and when he opened the door to the familiar indoors, his breath was taken from him.
Diluc was conversing, smiling for the first time in years, with someone sitting at the counter where a berry-flavoured drink was placed in front of them. Their clothes were foreign—from a different nation—their back was bare and revealed a noticeable tan, but their hair, their face, their eyes as they turned around—it was all the same.
"Kaeya."
Had your voice always been so sweet? He hadn't drunk an ounce of alcohol yet he felt dizzy.
You flashed him a mischievous smile and he realized he hadn't been breathing all that time.
"Miss me?"
His list of excuses seemed to be endless when it came to making up reasons to meet you, to skip work just to accompany you on your chores around the city, to bump into you because somehow, he always knew where to find you. You didn't push him away but you didn't let him come too close either. And you loved to torture him with questions of his estranged brother, so conveniently unaware of your terrible fallout.
No, you knew, you just tried to get under his skin for failing to keep his promise to you.
One night where you had truly drunk yourselves to oblivion, finding that your alcohol tolerance was comparable to his. Where had you practiced so much or was it due to your Mondstadtian roots? Why did you smell like Little Lamp Grass? Were you staying for good? So many questions he wished to ask, but the answers scared him. Because you would be honest.
"You're awfully clingy today," you commented as he leaned in to place his head on your lap. The hand that was not holding your wine glass was on his cheek, softly caressing it. Why were you punishing him so? A deep blush decorated your cheeks as you looked down at his starry eye, matching the expensive red ruby earrings you wore. If he could be dishonest with himself just as he was with everyone else, he could convince himself you felt the same way as he did despite the signs.
"Maybe it's because I like you."
You rolled your eyes and he immediately felt the lull of a siren's song pulling him towards the mysterious depths of the sea. He braved against it with the help of his intoxication.
"What would you do if I confessed?"
His chest felt like it was about to burst, body and mind below the water's surface, the pain of drowning alone being too much for him. He desperately tried to swim upwards to your reaching hand. But your answer only created an anchor that pulled him further down to the depths.
"Poor Kaeya. You know that I love Diluc."
"Little naiad."
Your lifeless eyes gazed up at the star looking down at you mesmerized by your beauty. It held unfiltered, honest, affection for you. It was that look he had first seen in his young adolescence, the one that made him realize he's not alone in his honest dishonesty. That one look that made him fall for you, greedily wanting you for himself, to take you away from his brother's clutches like with everything else. It was messed up, he knew it. You knew it. It was the source for the cruel words exchanged between you two constantly.
He cradled your icy body closer to his chest with one arm, his free hand gently taking hold of your chin. His whispered "may I?" stays unanswered but he doesn't mind. He presses his lips on yours as lightly as the fluttering of a butterfly. He kisses you again, this time smiling on your lips, never closing his eyes as he watches that expression of yours. Beautiful. Enchanting. And all for him.
Because now, no one would take you from him as there was no one to take, no one could abandon you as you had abandoned them all, no one could see through the cracks for something that was there solely for him as he had ripped the mask away.
His little naiad would forever be with him in his sea of memories and with him alone.