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The wind around Stormterror's lair is loud. It drowns out the Traveler's words before he departs, leaving Diluc to observe his descent from the tower. Behind Diluc, Venti speaks with Jean.
Kaeya stands with them.
Diluc folds his arms, watching as the Traveler glides down to activate the light actuators. Amber is gliding at his side, chattering as they descend.
"Are you worried?" Kaeya steps beside Diluc, his voice intruding on his senses. Diluc hears the smile that must be on his face — a smile that once may have been familiar but has now been refined by years of distance into something foreign.
Diluc doesn't look at him. He has no interest in seeing that smile. "The Traveler has trouble with his glider at times."
"You mean 'the Honorary Knight.'" Kaeya's voice lilts, seeking to capture Diluc's attention. When Diluc still does not turn to him, Kaeya positions his back against a stone pillar and gives Diluc his unbridled focus.
"That title is arbitrary. He's hardly a knight. The events of these past days should prove that." In the short time the Traveler has been with them, he has done more for the city than most knights do their entire lives. More than arbitrary, the title is an insult.
"Just because he's been a little outside the box in his methods doesn't mean he's above recognition." Kaeya pauses in mock consideration. "Or are you saying he should start skulking around at night like a certain vigilante we know and love?"
Diluc feels a reaction simmer within him. He feels Kaeya's words hook into his mind, drawing forth emotion.
He snuffs it out before it can catch.
"This has nothing to do with knighthood," Diluc says dismissively. "I have seen him pitch off cliffs and nearly die. I'm merely making sure he doesn't repeat those mistakes."
"Oh, he's fine. A little fall from a high place builds stamina, after all. You and I both learned that lesson the hard way."
There's no reason for Diluc to continue to watch the Traveler. He and Amber have already engaged the first light actuator. He's hardly focused on them as it is, his peripheral vision entirely taken by Kaeya.
But still he refuses to look away.
"Why did you come?" he asks.
"You know me," Kaeya replies. "I can't help but do a good deed for someone in need."
That finally elicits the reaction that Kaeya wants. Diluc turns to him to give him a flat look.
Kaeya chuckles. "Fine. For you, I'll be honest. I want to learn more about him. I know you do too." He pushes himself off the stone to spare a fleeting glance downward toward the Traveler. "There's something special about him. I knew it from the first moment I saw him. Just like I knew there was something special about you when we first met."
"You saw my Vision," Diluc accuses him. You saw my father. You saw opportunity.
But even with what he knows now, Diluc does not truly believe that. He remembers how lost Kaeya looked when his father brought him wet and shivering into their manor — the way he subtly flinched when handed a towel, as though expecting to be backhanded.
Kaeya has always been able to fake a smile. Back then, it was easy for Diluc to see beneath it.
Yet he hadn't been able to see the truth. And now Kaeya's smiles are sharper than ever. They cover his face as well as his intentions — they hide more truths than they ever did before.
"I know you don't believe that." Kaeya allows his voice to take on a hint of an edge, sharp beneath the surface, though he shrugs to undermine his own words. "When did I ever feel like I needed a Vision to carry out my plans?"
"When we fought."
As the words hang between them, Diluc thinks he may have surprised Kaeya into silence; he feels he has gained the upper hand. But Kaeya's smile remains intact. His composure does not falter.
He laughs.
"That wasn't for me." He takes a slow step forward, and then he takes another. The space between them narrows. "That was for you. To keep you from making a mistake that would haunt you." He hums. "Did it work, I wonder?"
There is an answer to that question; a simple word rests on Diluc's tongue. He swallows it down in favor of unimpressed neutrality. He does not give Kaeya what he wants; he does not answer at all.
Everyone has secrets.
Kaeya has a secret. His father had a secret.
Diluc took up the mantle and created a secret of his own.
Secrets are what led him here, to a web created by the choices he has made. Those secrets brought him back to Mondstadt and placed him in the company of Kaeya once more.
And secrets are why Kaeya is here as well — why he does not press for a response, but instead, reaches forward to adjust Diluc's windswept jacket. Diluc tenses, hastening a glance toward where Venti and Jean are talking, but they are hidden by the light actuator that the Traveler activated before his descent.
"Ah," Kaeya murmurs as he deftly slips his hand into Diluc's hidden pocket, pulling out his mask so smoothly, Diluc doesn't feel the loss. "Found it."
It is the mask he wore when he and the Traveler retrieved the Holy Lyre — the mask he brought on this mission in case he needed it again.
The mask that Kaeya has no business knowing exists.
Kaeya holds the mask up to Diluc's face. It's cool against his skin.
Diluc narrows his eyes.
"There you are," Kaeya says. His voice has grown quiet.
The air crackles around them. Diluc's Vision hums.
He feels singed.
"The real you."
Diluc takes hold of Kaeya's wrist, but Kaeya's grasp on the mask remains firm. Kaeya smiles, as he always does, and meets Diluc's eyes as though he is presenting a challenge. Do it, his expression says.
Diluc's grip tightens. Within the span of a second, he considers shoving Kaeya away.
He thinks about pulling him forward.
He does neither. Kaeya acts first. He presses himself against Diluc, keeping that mask in place, and then he slowly, carefully, kisses him.
Kaeya is underhanded, sneaky, and downright dangerous at times. He's slippery but charming, and he wields lies better than he wields Cryo. He is the first person you want to work out a plan and the last person you want pulling the strings in execution.
But Kaeya is also guarded — and beneath it all, wounded.
They both are.
The kiss is painfully gentle. All those sharp words now silenced, his smile forgone, Kaeya has nothing behind which to hide. He kisses Diluc as though he expects rejection; he kisses Diluc as though waiting for flames to burn him away.
The contact between their lips is fleeting — neither of them can allow it to linger.
But it weakens the hold that Diluc has on Kaeya's wrist. He loosens his grip.
Then it's over. Diluc releases Kaeya and Kaeya steps back, looking armored once more, a smile where Diluc's lips were a mere moment prior.
Kaeya holds out the mask, giving a taunting flourish. "Better put this away."
Diluc takes the mask. He looks down at it, then back up at Kaeya, who has a teasing glint in his eye again.
The kiss has drawn forth the questions that he has never asked. They rest upon his lips, unspoken.
He could give voice to them — could demand to know why and how could you. He could grab Kaeya and urge him to answer. He could kiss Kaeya into compliance and extract the truth with tender words.
He could simply ask.
Part of him believes that Kaeya would answer, if only he would.
But the reality is this: Diluc doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to remember what it is to have faith. He has no room in his heart for hope.
And how can he fault Kaeya for his methods, when his own have led him here as well — the place where their masks have become all they have of what was once true.
Diluc tucks his mask into his pocket. He looks at Kaeya and says, "That smile you're wearing."
It widens as Kaeya asks, "Are you going to tell me it brings out my eye?"
"It isn't you."
It happens instantly, like the sudden disappearance of a shard of ice tossed into a blazing fire: one moment it is there upon his lips, and the next it is gone.
There he is.
Here they are.