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Every year on this exact date and at this exact time, it was customary for the leading company in Liyue to host a ball that they called a ‘diplomatic event for colleagues and newcomers alike to come together and discuss current business and auspicious ideas’.
If you were to ask Kaeya, it looked like only the first hour of the ball was spent doing that before the principles fell to the ground and it turned no different from any other social gathering; a disheveled attempt at a formal meeting would turn into a party at which aristocrats would eventually carouse and indulge in other shenanigans (namely what pitiful one-night stand could be found in a crowd of lonely men and women, the majority of which had been born with silver spoons in their mouths and were thus pillow princesses at heart). It was classified as a masquerade, though only formally; the masks always came off after the first hour or two, and everyone used their real names from the beginning.
People came in to flaunt titles and wealth, a select few to talk about how they’d gone from low to high class, and went out wasted.
All in all, for the harbinger who was currently seated on one of the many couches nursing a glass of expensive red wine, it was an opportunity served on a silver platter and the perfect breeding spot for beguiling and extracting information. Those who were not married were desperate, and Kaeya currently had not one, but two women cuddling up to him, and Kaeya only remembered having told his name – a fake one – to one of them. That girl was sitting at his side with her hand on his thigh, her head against the crook of his neck as she talked about her family’s plans for the next year, information that he wasn’t interested in because her role in society simply wasn’t interesting enough. The girl's mask was poking into his skin, too.
The other girl, however, interested him: the daughter of the head of the Kanjou Commission, Himena Kujou. Her father was a true misanthrope and rarely went outside the fancy walls of the protective mansion he’d built around himself, delegating orders from the safety of the opulent excuse of a home. Kaeya had not expected him to attend this event, either, but that thought had been eliminated once he had recognized his daughter, for he was a family man who would never leave his beloved eldest to fend for herself, let alone with so many strangers around. However, his presence was not of importance to him now– a young girl was far easier to manipulate.
Securing a good connection with the clan would be equal to securing good trades with Inazuma, and she was also a great link in the purpose he was really stationed here for: to find out where the delusions that had been confiscated had been stored after the hideout was exposed. Producing delusions was expensive and troublesome, and it had been quite a huge batch that they had to abandon when Scaramouche decided that he was tired of walking on the thin line of 'am I loyal or am I not's and abandoned The Tsaritsa altogether.
Find her, become friends with her, lie to her, and learn from her. That was his task in simple terms.
“I heard you are quite the connoisseur yourself, Sir Remus,” the mentioned girl spoke, and it took a second longer than it should’ve for Kaeya to react, the act of reacting to that alias being spoken not quite being reflex yet. He’d have to fix that.
"I'm no sommelier, but I do know a fair bit about wine, yes," he smiled, cocking his head slightly to one side. He could feel the unimportant girl's fingers trailing over his biceps, though his gaze was fixated on the Kanjou girl on the couch placed across from the one he was sitting on. "This one has been made on grapes from Inazuma, has it not?" He smiled, knowing very well the answer. Being raised at a Winery wasn't completely noneducational.
"Indeed," she nodded, uncrossing her legs so she could lean forward and grab her glass of the drink they were having. Kaeya watched as she took a sip and her lips clamped down a little harder than necessary on the edge, leaving stains of red behind. "I'm impressed. Are you a fan?"
Kaeya clicked his tongue, then gave a small shake of his head. A lie here would merely cause suspicion if exposed. “No, I would not say so. I prefer wines from the Northeast,” he admitted with a sigh. “I am from Mondstadt, after all, so I might have a slight bias.” A lie, kind of.
“Not really a flatterer, are you?” She spoke, though her tone was not accusatory but rather relieved; the poor girl was most likely used to people only approaching her as a stepping stone to getting closer to her father, and Kaeya was, fortunately or unfortunately, doing a good job at manipulating her into thinking he wanted anything more than that from her. She was still wearing the half-face mask, too, as if that could hide her identity from those interested in her connections. Poor woman.
“No, no. Remus is really flattering,” the other girl’s voice suddenly sounded from far too close to his ear, and Kaeya had to keep himself from grimacing. He leaned forward to place his glass of wine down on the table between them, hoping that the movement of that action would make the unnamed woman’s arms slip from around his shoulder; they did not, sadly. “He’s already complimented me plenty today.”
Kaeya forced a smile onto his face even though it mildly annoyed him, and it pissed him even more off when the Commissioner’s daughter lifted her eyebrows at him, seeming to pull just a little more into herself.
“I would not call that ‘flattering’, dear. I’m merely pointing out the beauty that I see,” he purred, a pitiful attempt to save himself from the image this unnamed girl was building of him. “Only a blind man would not notice, and only a brute wouldn’t bring it up.”
This caused the girl to giggle, and she pressed a wet kiss to his cheek that made Kaeya want to reach forward, grab one of the napkins on the table, and wipe his face off. It was worth it, though, for Himena seemed to relax a little more, pulled into the underlying, unsaid quote of Kaeya’s: ‘I am not a liar, Himena, so you may relax around me. I see and tell truth.’ How ironic.
“... Oh. Tell me, then, Sir Remus,” she spoke, crossing her legs. “Am I beautiful to you, too?”
This caught Kaeya off guard, her words not aligning with the shy and reserved character that he had believed her to be, though when he looked her in the eyes, thoughts connected again at the display of nervous, genuine curiosity. He’d been better at spinning this web than he thought, for she surely was not a stranger to compliments with her status and youthful elegance, so it must’ve been his personal opinion that she longed for.
“If I throw around too many sweet words, I’ll start to look insincere,” he teased. “Though, I cannot deny that you are quite the gorgeous woman, my la–”
…. An interruption.
“You three seem to be enjoying yourself quite a lot. Care enough to let a lonely man join?”
The perpetrator was tilting his head on a hand raised to support his chin with his palm, deserted eyes just barely peeking out from under a blood-red mask with a golden lining. The tie that Kaeya had spent ten minutes teaching Childe was tied awkwardly, and the collar of his shirt was sitting all wrong again, too– the hair gel had given up and his hair was as much of a mess as always, but he somehow still managed to look attractive as he leaned forward, his forearms on the back of the couch opposite Kaeya.
“Who are you?” The Commissioner girl asked, whipping her head back, and Kaeya sighed. Deeply. At least the dark red suit he was wearing had been tailored correctly (though that was purely because of Kaeya; he truly was the fulcrum of this mission).
“Hello to you, too, Childe. Did you get bored?” It wasn’t a question he needed an actual answer to, for he knew Childe well enough to know what he was here for. It was not very hard when blue eyes so obviously kept coming back to the girl still glued to Kaeya’s side, a slight crease in his forehead that he knew, with relief, someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice. But Kaeya noticed, and he’d be amused if he wasn’t aware that Childe wouldn’t hesitate to scrap the whole mission to get someone’s ‘filthy hands off something that wasn’t theirs’. Kaeya would argue that such words objectified him quite a lot, but it didn’t sting when it was him.
“You know me,” he grinned. Kaeya did, yes, and he gave Childe a look that would take the verbal form of just a ‘don’t’, though he was sure that the longer translation got across. Don’t do something stupid and ruin this chance because you’re a little jealous.
That kind of thing infuriated Childe, to be robbed of the right to protect ‘his property’, but he needed to learn to control himself sooner or later, so why not now?
“You didn’t answer the question,” commented the leech-girl.
“Oh, sorry,” He managed a laugh, and then slipped around the edge of the couch to sit down on its armrest, legs crossing as he brought a hand across his chest and did a small bow of his upper body. “The name’s Childe, of Snezhnaya. And you are…?”
Kaeya hoped, for her own sake, that she would not answer. Unfortunately, she did.
“Samara,” she responded. “Of Sumeru.” Kaeya had already guessed as much from her dialect and her appearance, but it was nonetheless good to confirm his suspicions. It was also nice to be able to give a name to someone so physically close to him as she was, since he’d – they’d – most likely be actively trying to erase her handprints from his skin and clothes when he got out of here.
He hoped that Childe would leave it here, would say he just came to check up on a friend and then leave, and while that was already unlikely, it became impossible when Samara had to open her mouth again.
“Isn’t Snezhnaya where the Fatui originates from? I heard a harbinger was going to be here, but turns out it was just a rumour. I’m really relieved. Even if you’re Snezhnayan, you’ll have to admit they’re all insane and inhumane; especially the Tsaritsa! God of love my ass,” She laughed. Kaeya’s heart broke a little bit for her, though his fingertips twitched in a way that spoke of emotions that had zero to do with pity.
“Huh,” Childe smiled. “That’s an interesting opinion! Care to elaborate on your reasoning?”
The tilt to his smile, the challenge, and the slight daring drawl of his tongue all came together to shape into a warning that meant it was Kaeya’s cue to shrug Samara off at last and stand up. He attempted to fix Ajax with a glare, but he just returned it with an annoyed grimace, and then his eyes trailed downward to where the Sumerian’s hands were now lingering on Kaeya’s legs. Apparently, she was desperate to get her hands on whatever part of him she could reach. Burning.
“It’s been nice talking to the both of you, but I think my friend needs some air. Please excuse me, ladies.”
It was with those words that Kaeya pulled away, the weight of knowing that he was abandoning a mission almost immediately settling on his shoulders, though he pushed through the burden to grab Childe by the biceps and drag him towards the nearest exit. He heard him hiss something behind him, jumbled syllables that his brain could not fit together, though he did not want to make the sacrifice that was stopping to listen and potentially risking that Childe turned around and planted a fist in an innocent and diplomatically important woman’s face. And so, he ignored him.
Though the doors were as huge and grandiose as practically any other thing in this building, they came open easily enough, revealing not the path that would lead Kaeya to their carriage, but a balcony instead. It wasn’t as far away as he’d like, but it’d have to do.
Kaeya didn’t even get to turn around before Childe was speaking:
“She was all over you, Kaeya.”
The sentence fell over pursed lips as Kaeya spun around on his heel, the very swerve of the action being enough to let Childe know that what lay on his tongue was a scolding. Just like Kaeya had known he’d need to scold him that night just from the way he’d looked at him back with the two women.
“And I refrained from actively humoring her advances all while I was doing pretty good at chasing our goal, Ajax,” he mimicked his name in the same exasperated tone, arms crossing over his chest as a frown found its way onto Kaeya’s own forehead. He loved the other, knew how he could get, but it still frustrated him more than it amused him tonight. Childe hadn’t completely blown his chances at getting what he wanted, though had significantly decreased them. ”And you ruined that.”
“Ruined what?” he huffed, throwing a hand out to the side in frustration. “Your chances of getting into bed with that woman? Or both of them?”
Though Ajax’s eyes were usually whatever the most suitable antonym of the word ‘refulgent’ was, the surface of that still pond stirred and bubbled now, threatening to boil over.
“You are very well aware I would not have gone that far, Ajax,” he sighed, uncrossing his arms to instead lean back on the railing. Those words were true and Ajax should know that as well as he did. The latter just didn't seem to want to admit that, perhaps because the fear of Kaeya letting himself into another person's bed was less embarrassing than the hunger and possessive streak of a bloodhound.
"Wouldn't you?"
– … Or perhaps not. To Kaeya’s surprise, that question sounded somewhat genuine; perhaps this was about insecurity, then. Huh. It’d be a lie to say his heart did not soften upon realizing.
“I wouldn’t,” he sighed and then took mercy on him. He pushed himself away from the fence, cupping Ajax’s face and pressing his lips to his mouth in one smooth movement. His former step was quickly reversed when the other harbinger eagerly pressed Kaeya’s body back against the railing, Kaeya having to arch his back out over open air as a hand slipped around his waist, the other one supporting their weight. His touch was aggressive, possessive, fingers digging into Kaeya’s skin and slipping past the open jacket, up under his shirt, crawling, tongue–
“Archons, let me breathe,” Kaeya huffed, his hand planted against Ajax’s chest to keep the other away from him as he desperately tried to catch his breath, the cold of the night stinging like needles.
“No,” was his curt reply, and Kaeya quickly had to raise another hand to block the upcoming attack of a predator that did not care about the fact that he still felt like someone had just attempted to kill him by lack of oxygen.
“Ajax,” Kaeya borderline whined, his feet being a little too far from the ground and his upper body a little too much mid-air. “Don’t throw me off this balcony because you got a little jealous.”
A moment of hesitation, and then, “Mm, sorry.” Ajax mumbled, pressing a kiss to Kaeya’s neck – that he allowed, moving with the movement of Ajax’s chest. He then slid his arm back around Kaeya’s waist, tugging him closer to himself as he took a step back.
“Thank you,” Kaeya rolled his eyes, then kissed Childe’s jaw, the other answering with a rumbling hum. He seemed to have calmed down slightly from just that, though Kaeya doubted his ‘silence before lightning strikes’ would last for much longer if they were to go back inside and spot that Samara girl. Thus…
He sighed. The other had been tearing down his walls and turning him soft for years now, so it was no wonder annoyance and determination vanished so quickly when it was about him. “Let’s just go home now, ‘kay? Lack of results is better than you starting a fight.”
Ajax’s face visibly lighted up at that, devoid of any guilt despite the fact that he’d been the end of their mission. Kaeya couldn’t judge him, especially not when he knew the regret would come to him sooner or later. In the face of the Tsaritsa, most likely. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He was turning far too soft for their own good.
“Thank you, Kaeya,” Ajax grinned, nosing against Kaeya’s cheek in victory. Kaeya could only sigh yet again.
… It was safe to say that the Tsaritsa was not happy with either of them.