Chapter Text
A couple years ago
It’s been a couple months since Kaeya started living with his new family. Yet, he has already started getting used to living with the Ragnvindrs.
Every morning, the little boy would always start by being awoken by a very excited Diluc trying to wake the poor child up. The energetic kid would start by yelling to wake up and if they don’t, then he goes to jumping on the bed while yelling. And today is no different.
“Kaeya! Kaeya! Kaeyaaaaaaa! Wake up!” He yells excitedly as he already starts jumping on the bed which makes his brother bounce a bit.
The eyepatch wearing boy groans as he wakes up from all the raquet his sibling is making. “Hmm? What’s happening…?” he mumbles sleepily as he rubs his eyes open.
“C’mon! Wake up! Wake up!” the other continues to says.
“Alright I’m up Diluc. No need to keep bouncing and yelling…” Kaeya says as he sits up and gets off his bed. He starts to stretch a bit before looking at his space themed calendar on his wall. He gasps as he sees that it’s his birthday.
“Happy birthday Kae!” Diluc tells him before leaving him to go and wake up their father in a similar fashion.
Now alone in his room, the blunet starts getting changed into some of Diluc’s old clothes since thats all he currently has. He goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and hair then heads to the music room to grab his trumpet so he can wake up his dad because not even Diluc alone is able to make that man wake up in the morning.
Once he enters the elder Ragnvindr’s room he finds his older brother jumping on the king sized bed as he yells to make the sleeping redhead awaken yet fails. The youngest starts playing his instrument very loudy which causes Crepus to startle awake and the younger redhead to be jumpscared.
“What was that for !?” Diluc says a bit grumpily which makes Kaeya giggle a bit. The two boys start to play fight while their father yawns as he sits up on his bed and stretches a bit. He goes to wipe away his sleepiness from his eyes and chuckles at his sons antics which causes the them to bring their attention to the laughing adult.
“what’s the matter you two? You don’t usually wake me up this early unless theres something important happening today.” He says with his morning voice as he stand up and struggles to lift his two kids up in his arms.
“Because it’s Kaeya’s birthday today papa!” Diluc excitedly yells since he knows that his brother would be too shy to tell their dad the reason.
This shocks the man since he forgot to prepare anything for his adopted son’s birthday. Not because he doesn’t care about him but because he’s just been so busy recently not to mention that Kaeya only told him about it a week ago. But, he knows these are valid excuses for completely forgetting his child’s special day.
“Oh… well how about we go buy stuff for your birthday then?” Crepus nervously says, hoping that neither of his kids realize that he hasn’t prepared anything yet for his celebration.
“Ok!” his firery son says while the other happily nods. Their dad groans as he lowers them to the floor and complains about having back pain again.
“Alright now, how about you boys go down stairs and eat what Adelinde has prepared for breakfast before me? while I get ready for the day.” the elder Ragnvindr tells them as he brings them out of his room so he can get changed in private.
“Alright papa!” they say at the same time. Once the door closes infront of them, they race down stairs to see who can get to the kitchen first.
And to no one’s surprise, Diluc is the winner of the race. he proudly brags about his victory while Kaeya pouts. “You probably cheated” he mumbles to himself.
“Good morning young masters, and happy birthday young master Kaeya.” Adelinde tells them from the kitchen counter as she cooks some pancakes for them. “go sit down at the table, I’m almost finished with making your breakfast.”
The two kids listen to her and sit at the table and patiently wait. Once the head maid is done cooking, she brings two plates filled with the delicious and fluffy crêpes. She places them infront of the kids and kisses each of their heads and then hugs them both. She goes back to the kitchen and starts to clean up.
Diluc and Kaeya then start devouring Adelinde’s excellent cooking and before they know it, the plate is completely empty. They go to wash their dirty dishes as well as their faces and hands which are covered in maple syrup.
Not long after, Crepus comes downstairs and eat his breakfast and drinks some coffee. Once he’s done, he does the same thing as his sons and goes to get the three of them ready to head out. He makes them wear their winter boots, coats, mittens, scarf and their winter hats. By the time they have everything on they both seem to disapear in their clothing because of how big it is on them.
The three of them say goodbye to Adelinde before they go outside to enter the car. Once they’re in the vehicle, Crepus makes sure the boys have their seat belts on before putting his own on. He takes out a cd of kid songs to entertain the two in the back even if they are past the age for such things and he starts driving.
He decides to go to a book store first since he knows that Kaeya has already finished reading all his books at least five times now. Some of them have been used so much that they are breaking apart or missing a bunch of pages.
The car ride there is quite short since they live near the town center where most restaurants, shops, and other miscellaneous buildings areb. It doesn’t take more than five minutes to arrive at the book store.
The first thing people usually notice about the exterior is that its made out of wood that’s painted a dark emerald green colour. The sign on top of the building has each letter be a different font. On the store sign it is written ‘Tamimi bookstore’. The windows are huge to display the many thousands of books inside the building. Once inside, the place is practically covered in books to the point that there are a many towers of books that almost touch the ceiling everywhere. The bookshelves that hold novels are made of red cherry wood and are massive. There also seems to be some ancient relics and gears that decorate the walls and furniture.
When the family is inside, the boys are stupified by how many books there are in the place and seem to be stuck in place until their dad tells them to carefully look around for books that Kaeya might enjoy. So, they start dashing around the place and looking into every knook and cranny of the shop to find some books that might interest the blue-haired boy.
Meanwhile, Crepus goes to the front desk and finds his friend Faruzan tinkering away at a small device. The lady’s hair is in two long pastel turquoise pigtails and one of her bangs has an ‘X’ shaped hair clip that a light goldish brown colour. She has similar coloured eyes as the hair clip and her pupils are triangular and are turquoise. She is quite short compared to the elder Ragnvindr since she is a little over half his size. She likes to wear vintage cardigans and wears many bracelets and rings. She has owned Tamimi bookstore for over a decade and is known to do tutoring but is very picky with who she tutors. She acts a lot like an elderly person and will act like she has trouble hearing, will ask to be called ‘madam Faruzan’ and much more. Before she was a store owner, she was an archeologist looking into ancient technology of fallen civilaztion. But, one day, she got trapped inside some ruins for a month with barely any food or water and decided to quit and work at a bookstore instead.She knows Crepus because he has been a customer since it opened ten years ago and enjoys talking to her.
“Well, if it isn’t Master Crepus. What bring you here on such a cold and windy day? Hmm? Seems like you brought your children here too.” The shop owner asks as she disassembles a small wind up toy from the early 20th centry.
“Well Madam Faruzan, I’m here because I have to buy some gifts for my youngest since I totally forgot to buy some earlier and have to do it last minute. So, I just decided to let him choose them instead.” He explains to the ex-archeologist.
Before they can continue the conversation, he feels someone pull on his shirt and finds Diluc and Kaeya’s arms full of books. He grabs the books and looks through the choices and finds that most of them are about astronomy or related to it. Once he’s done looking at the books, he gives them to Faruzan and makes her scan the novels and then buys them. She places the published works in bags and hands it back to the older redhead and waves goodbye to all three of them to which they all wave back.
Crepus puts the bags in the back of the car and makes the two boys put their seatbelts on again. He sit in the driver’s seat and once again plays the cd. He looks back to where Diluc and Kaeya are sat and watch the two bicker about which is the coolest bird.
“Falcons and owls are the coolest birds! The falcon is the fastest bird in the world! And owls can turn their necks a total of 270 degrees! Not to mention both are nocturnal and are pretadors.” Diluc proudly explains as he crosses his arms.
“Nu-uh! Uh… um… Peacocks are cooler! Since they are made of loads of pretty colours and uh… because they have a big tail!” Kaeya tries to counter but since he is less knowledgable on birds and isn’t as proficient with Common he struggles to explain why he thinks peacocks are cooler than the two birds his brother just mentionned.
“you know that only the male peacock’s plumage is full of vibrant colours right? The female ones are only brown. Not to mention that the same can be said about the big tail.” Diluc informs his little brother who becomes a little sad that not all of them look as flashy as he thought they were. “B-but I guess they are also cool!” he adds since he was afraid that he was going to make him cry.
Kaeya very quickly started smiling again after hearing him say that. And the two continued to talk about various other things like video games which Kaeya recently learned existed since he was too young to play video games when he lived with his biological father and the orphanage prioritized spending the money on things like food or clothes than consoles or toys.
Before they knew it, they had arrived at the next stop. When they left the car, what they found in front of them was what could be described as a kid’s paradise. A toy shop. Before their dad could even stop them, they ran straight inside and looked all over the place and almost caused a couple messes by accidentally bumping into more delicate objects and making them fall over and break. Once their father finally enters the store, he finds them in the stuffed animal section playing with some of the plushes being sold. He sighs in relief that he quickly found them “You guys have to wait for me before you enter. I would rather not lose you or be unable to supervise you.” He tells them as he hugs the two boys tightly. “now how about you two choose a couple toys for your birthday?” He then suggests the kids. They nod and mainly pick out stuffed toys. Kaeya choosing a big polar bear, a medium sized owl and another big black coated dog. While Diluc picks out a huge Dragon, a medium sized peacock and a small turtle.
The man is a bit concerned on if it will fit in the trunk or if there will be space left for the clothing he will be buying afterwards but decides that it doesn’t matter since all that matters right now are his sons happiness and smiles. He asks them to follow him to the cash register and buys them and leaves. As he predicts, it is difficult to store the gifts inside the trunk but eventually is able to succeed.
Before he enters the car like Kaeya and Diluc, he feels his phone vibrate and finds Adelinde is calling him. He presses accept and put the device to his ear. “Yes, hello Adelinde? Is something the matter?” he asks the head maid.
“Hello master Crepus, I just wanted to say that I have made quite a few clothes for young master Kaeya so you won’t need to go shopping for some.” She explains to which Crepus finds to be quite convenient for when she told him this when he was just about to go buy some clothes for Kaeya.
“Well isn’t that convenient? I was just about to buy some haha.” He responds to Adelinde.
“Let’s just say I have a very good intuition~” she says before hanging up. He decides to ignore that and enters his automobile.
The drive home is the same as when they left and since they went a bit farther away than the book store it, it took around fifteen minutes instead. Once home, the children go to help out their father in taking out all the stuff they bought and bringing them inside. After they emptied the trunk, they remove all their winter clothes and start playing with their new toys for hours.
When Dinner time comes, the four of them ,which includes Adelinde, eat some delicious mushroom skewers marinaded with the head maid’s secret sauce and enjoy socializing. Once they finished eating their meals, Adelinde brings out a bunch of wrapped boxes and gives them to the birthday boy. He unwraps all of them and finds some perfectly crafted clothes from blouses, shorts, pyjamas, suits and much more. He leaves the smalles box for last since Adelinde asked him if he could do that. He delicately unwraps it and finds a dark purple eyepatch with star motifs sewn on it. He starts becoming teary eyed and hugs the head maid tightly and repeatedly says thank you.
“It’s my pleasure young master. It bring me joy to see that you enjoy my gifts for you so much.” She tells him lovingly as she hugs him back and scoops him up in her arms and gives him a small kiss on his cheek. She drops him down on his chair and heads back to the other side of the kitchen and Crepus follows her there shortly after.
“Since when have you been preparing these? Its practically impossible to have made that many clothing in the time we knew about his birthday!” Crepus questions her as she takes out the cake she made earlier in the day and places the candles ontop.
“Who says I’ve been making them only a week ago? I started sewing some of the clothing only a day after he was taken in~” She responds as she lights the candles with a lighter.
“Oh.” Is all the man says as he helps her with light the candles since she was struggling with the lighter.
Once they are done with that, Adelinde picks it up and the two start singing happy birthday all the way to the dinning table where she places it down infront of Kaeya.
“Make a wish!” Diluc tells Kaeya after they finished singing.
“Ok!” he says. He thinks for a moment on what to wish and looks at all his family and thinks about how happy he is with them and decides what the wish will be. He breathes in and blows all the candles out in one shot.
“What did you wish for?” His dad whispers to him in his ear. Curious to know what it might’ve been.
Kaeya giggles a little and whispers back “It’s a secret”