Chapter Text
“Welcome home,” she tells him. There’s the most subtle smile on her lips as she scans him and his soaking clothes from head to toe, leaning against the doorway.
Kaeya shuffles inside, brushing against her for only a moment though he knows her shirt will get damp that way. “Glad to be home.”
The entryway of the house was not his own, of course. Neither was the living room he steps into after he drains his boots of the water, or the ornate rug he stands on so the wooden flooring wouldn’t become damp with the raindrops dripping from his hair. It was her home, but more often than not Kaeya found himself standing within it— often by choice, this time was pure circumstance. Her humble abode was much closer than his own house was when the storm started, he tells himself.
He doesn’t even notice her absence until she hands him a towel, her smile still present on her face. Kaeya thanks it with a whispered “thank you”, proceeding to wring out the water in his ponytail to the towel and the poor rug below it. “Fell into the fountain at the square, didn't you?” She laughs, and Kaeya almost doesn’t catch it through the rumbling sound of raindrops punching the roof above them.
“No. Night patrol, actually.” He had been doing his nightly patrols throughout Mondstadt- a task exchange he made with Amber a few months ago because she’s deathly afraid of the dark, the poor outrider- when the clouds rolled in before he could blink and the rain fell down as if they weighed a kilogram each. Kaeya immediately started to run towards the closest shelter he knew, and possibly by instinct, he ended up on her doorstep.
“I was near Cat’s Tail.”
A lie, though a very simple one. He was over five blocks away from the tavern in question when the first rain dropped on his head.
But whether or not she caught his lie is always unclear to him, because she chooses to only nod and her tone when she asks her next question isn’t a teasing or suspicious one. “So you were nearby, then. Your house is probably… five blocks away, right? Makes sense you came here. You wouldn’t want to be running in the rain.”
“Yeah.”
She leaves again. He watches her walk up the stairs until she’s out of sight, but though not out of mind. Kaeya surveys the living room until he stops at the shelf before him, sheltering her favorite moments in frames as they were all organized in a neat row. He’s made a habit out of looking through the pictures each and every time he stops by in the lulls of his visits when she is not there.
The first picture is full of smiles with her at the center of her coming-of-age party, the next being from the day she gained her Anemo vision, and another from his brother’s tavern as they sat at a table with drinks in their hand.
The last one, framed in an especially cute frame Kaeya had decorated himself with squiggles and stickers he’d bought from the general store manager’s kid, showed her and Kaeya at his seventeenth birthday party with quaint tacky birthday hats situated on top of both their heads. When he squints, he can recognize his hand on her shoulder, and her hand on his.
When it came to befriending people and establishing connections, the Ragnvindrs almost exclusively talked to others at the top of the Mondstadt chain. Though Kaeya was only a Ragnvindr by name and an Alberich from birth— and the Alberichs used to be known for their overwhelming friendliness that could sweep people off their feet. His adopted father had scrunched his nose in disdain when Kaeya mentioned inviting her to his birthday party, inviting a commoner into their manor without much thought. However Kaeya was also born with an aptitude for persuading, and the next day Kaeya welcomed her on the Ragnvindr doorstep, a tacky blue birthday hat at home on his head.
“You’re looking at that old picture again?” She sneaks up from behind him to find the frame in his hands, “I think you were a lot shorter, then.”
The frame finds its rightful place at the center of her shelf once more as Kaeya puts it back and turns on his heel to face her. “At least I grew through the past five years.” He smirks. Being taller than most everyone else had its advantages past reaching high shelves— bragging rights, for example.
She huffs and shoves the stack of fabric she held into his arms, a change of clothes that seem to be exactly his size when Kaeya unfolds the shirt in front of him. “Don’t need you getting sick,” is her excuse.
But Kaeya never keeps clothes in her house. And she has never gifted him any clothes before. Yet, she has clothes ready on hand for him, in somehow exactly his size.
His heart gets tired from the implications.
She makes a point of turning around as he changes, taking the soaked jacket and various other outfit pieces as he places them on the table that separates the two, heading into the next room to hang them up to dry. Soon, Kaeya stands in the living room dressed in the plainest outfit anyone could think up: a soft sweater and a pair of (just barely) ill-fitting pants.
He’s still in awe that they even fit at all.
Though Kaeya, as hospitable as she is, knows he doesn’t fit in here. He had his own house, and should’ve been in it in the first place.
His leather boots are still damp when he attempts to wiggle them on, but then the fabric brushes against a cut across his ankle he knows wasn’t there before the storm. Kaeya winces, and the boot falls to the wood.
“Kaeya?”
“I’m fine.”
Behind him, she enters the entryway. She moves so quickly throughout her home, much faster than he does and much faster than he could cover the wound with his hand.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s fine.”
“You were running in the rain.”
Kaeya contemplates arguing, saying No, I wasn’t, but her tight-lipped frown tells him it’ll mean nothing anyway.
The wound feels chilly when she heals it, her hand hovering over his ankle as the Anemo vision gets to work. Kaeya had always told her that she should apply for the Knights of Favonius, but she complains about the power that’d give her, the heavy responsibility where she’d feel compelled to help anyone and everyone day in and day out. “I’m much happier taking it slow,” she told him once, “I heal my loved ones faster than anyone else.”
“And… done.” When he looks down now, he finds the wound almost completely healed with a thin scar serving as a memory.
He pauses. Slowly, Kaeya looks up at her. “...You’re not going to kiss it better?”
In the brief millisecond she stares straight back at him, he commits it to memory. Confused, though contemplative is how he’ll remember it. Then she laughs so very hard at him, because it’s a dangerous question like the ones he asks the vulnerable people at the taverns. This time, they both know the risk that comes with answering it.
So she doesn’t.
Kaeya stands awkwardly in the doorway, shifting his weight from one side to the other as the rain pounds onto the pavement outside. He knows he wants to leave, that he should leave, but he stands in the doorway nonetheless. He feels like he’s leaving home for the umpteenth time. Waiting. Hoping?
He wonders, in these fleeting moments as she stares at him to say goodbye and he stares back expecting a please leave my home, what exactly love is. His adoptive father used to tell him that it is when you want to spend eternity with a person; Acting Grandmaster Jean described her love with Lisa as an everlasting comfort when it comes to someone’s company.
But maybe, just maybe, love was having a home and letting someone into it. Maybe love was staring at someone’s pictures every time you have the chance to no matter how many times you’ve gazed into the birthday hats and the Anemo vision and the smile of your brother in the background. Maybe love was knowing and having extra clothes despite never ever having a reason to keep them. To have a backup. To care. Maybe love was standing uncomfortably in the doorway of a home you invited yourself into, trying to leave because you’re scared of staying. Maybe love was—
“Do you want to stay the night?”