Chapter Text
Hypothesis: One’s world has no colour till they meet their soulmate.
Albedo’s makeshift home is on the verge of falling apart. It’s nothing more than a cave in a cliff, but a place he has grown attached to nonetheless. Its walls are starting to freeze in and icicles hang even on the insides, right over his apparatus. He has no one to blame except himself for its self-destruction, for his home must have learned from his habits during his time here. It only took a little for them to grow heavy enough to fall—after all, with Dragonspine’s dangerously low temperatures, it was an inevitable outcome. When they do get heavy enough to not be able to withstand their own weight anymore, they’ll end Albedo right there.
A quick, painful and pretty chilling death. He doesn’t fear this end. As for the last few days, Albedo hasn’t had much company. Once Aether had gotten what he required from Dragonspine and tested out Albedo’s new sword as he had requested, he never showed up again. He wishes briefly that their encounter had not been so short, because admittedly, Albedo had gotten attached—but alas, people come and go and the seasonal depression that comes with the cold is all that stays the same.
Klee has started to visit less with Jean forbidding her from entering Dragonspine without a guardian, and at times, he can see her roaming the foot of the mountains, playing under the supervision of one of the knights. He keeps her close when he can, and most other times, he wishes he could’ve been a better brother to her.
Sucrose—as lovely as she is—is not someone he bothers too often. She’s too occupied with her own experimentations and happenings to involve him in them. It’s not that she cares too little, but he cares too much to wrangle those that matter into a mess that cannot be resolved. Albedo lies on his bed, fingers clenched around a fading polaroid picture with the backdrop of the stone ceiling. There is the faint snapping of ice from the icicles overhead, and Albedo has tried not to heat the cave too much for the sake of saving himself from a cold shower.
“Would they forget me if I’m gone for long enough?” he thinks experimentally, quite hard—hard enough for the skin of his forehead to crease except there’s nothing on his mind. His mind is foggy, misty with jumbled up thoughts of everything. When he tries to pinpoint one idea, it evaporates instantaneously and once again, Albedo is left confused and directionless.
Albedo sits up, rubbing his back which has gotten sore from lying on the cold slab of rock he has called his bed. He stretches, looking around with a dreary expression. He fixes his eyes on the unfinished painting sitting cold on a canvas across him. He trudges towards it, holding its sides gently.
He stares intently, squinting his eyes. Ash. Charcoal. Burlywood. Albedo purses his lips and flips the lone leather notebook sitting upon his desk. He skims through the papers until he finds an empty space on one of the half-written pages.
Day 63: No progress. The phenomenon remains unexplained.
Albedo can’t see colours. Anywhere he looks, the world looks as if it’s been sucked dry of all its colour. It is an ailment he has read about in books and research papers buried at the back of library bookshelves, one that he has figured he may never get cured from. ‘Love’—it’s an unpredictable variable, one that cannot be easily measured even with him being his own test subject. He can’t calculate when it’ll come crashing into his life, or the toll it’ll take on his health. And thus, his experiment continues till the day arrives where he sees colour.
He grips onto his paintbrush and turns his cup upside down, although the water he left inside has frozen over. He presses the bristles against the canvas, but they are stiff and unused, but it leaves nothing more than a faint water stain. Albedo purses his lips, dipping it in paint and trying a second time, drawing vague lines of a scenery hovering vaguely in his mind. The painting starts to resemble the landscape of a series of mountains, something like Dragonspine, bound to not even half its potential by monotones and rough, jagged lines.
When Albedo looks down at his palette, he can’t differentiate between any of the hollow greys. Dovetail. Gauntlet. Stone. His own hands are a pearly white with smudges of brown—dirt, or they may be drying scars, but his eyes fail to find a difference.
“Anybody home?” a voice echoes. Albedo flinches, startled by the sudden presence. He wrenches his neck, stretching his arms to cover his messy desk with as much as he can with his scrawny frame. From what deduction he made from the sound of the voice, his assumption is confirmed when he sees the face of his… acquaintance… peering into his cave. He shifts uncomfortably in his place, reluctant to welcome the unexpected visitor. The latter strides in, failing to notice, or completely ignoring the tense silence in the still atmosphere around them.
“I’m Kaeya Alberich— Ah, Albedo?” he introduces but stops himself upon noticing the alchemist. “Mind if I hang around here before I die of the cold?”
Albedo grits his teeth. He’s not exactly fond of unexpected visitors, especially ones that won’t be of any use to him. He knows who Kaeya is—everybody does—but he’s expected to know the captain a little better. Their interactions stop where their duty ends, and with their fields being so vastly different, they rarely have to interact. They aren’t close in the least. In fact, Kaeya knows little enough about Albedo to not have expected to find him of all people in Dragonspine.
“What are you doing?” Albedo interrogates.
“Did the cold make you grumpier?” Kaeya remarks calmly, proceeding to stride inwards into the cave, having no care for Albedo’s privacy or opinion. He crosses his arms over the back of his head and meanders to what seems to be the makeshift bed. He makes the mistake of sitting down too hard and ends up bruising his lower back in the process.
Kaeya grimaces. Albedo is utterly unimpressed.
“You don’t even have a mattress?”
“How was I supposed to carry a mattress onto the mountain, genius?” Albedo deadpans, rolling his eyes out of annoyance. It’s not typical of him to be so generous with his sarcasm, or his annoyance, but today has gone especially badly with the reminder of just another failure. Kaeya sighs and looks away, pressing his cheek against the cusp of his palm. Albedo, after minutes of observing his guest, decides that Kaeya simply won’t go even if asked, and averts his attention back to his painting. He brushes his fingertips against its rough surface, and it doesn’t feel nice against his fingertips. If he tries, perhaps the painting can be salvaged—
“Here I thought you called yourself a painter,” Kaeya chuckles, trying to muffle a laugh. He stands, and then he walks with his pompous pride towards the painting, leaning forward with his audacity and then his hand flies to cover his lips. He doubles over in laughter, as though what he is seeing is so, so funny that he could be laughing for centuries. Albedo tightens his grip around the paintbrush in his grip.
“What are you implying?” he demands, and his tone is challenging, daring. He stares with a furious gaze, rage visible only in the undertones of his calm, collected voice. And through his heavy-lidded eyes, Kaeya notices briefly, the anger in the teal of his irises.
“I find the possibility humorous that a painter doesn’t know colours work. It’s just as ridiculous as a writer who does not understand language, or a swordsman who has never once held a weapon—” he jokes, and it sounds almost mocking. It may be, but Albedo has tried so hard to quell his rage that his fingernails have started to dig through the surface of his skin. Only barely, but enough to make it hurt.
“Shut up, Kaeya,” Albedo interrupts sternly through gritted teeth. Nevertheless, Kaeya being as dense as he’d chosen to be, bursts into another fit of laughter. He laughs, and laughs until his stomach twists into a knot and he fails to realise that it’s a sinking warning that something terrible is about to happen— “Shut the fuck up, Kaeya!” Albedo yells, slamming his paintbrush against the ground with so much force that it bounces off the solid rock ground and rolls off into the snow outside. Albedo fumes, marks of his nails now etched onto the surface of his skin.
Kaeya straightens his back, a shiver running down his spine as he halts himself into a tense silence. He lips part in shock, and he gapes as he watches the consequences of a self-propelled mess spiral out of control. Albedo is often so calm, or devoid of emotion, it is a whole new sight to see him angry. “I didn’t choose to be this way,” Albedo yells. His eyes are glazed over but he doesn’t cry. He can’t cry. The harsh weather of Dragonspine is so cruel, it’d freeze his tears as soon as they fell off the edges of his eyelids and force his emotions further into numbness.
Kaeya bites his lip, standing slowly so as to not surprise Albedo or agitate him any further. Slowly, he approaches the paintbrush buried under chunks of hail right at the entrance of the cave. He dusts it with his hands, handing it to Albedo with an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to...” he clarifies, but there is no apology. Trying to lighten the mood, he lets out an awkward chuckle accompanied by a comment, “Hey, I’m not that mean.”
Albedo turns away coldly, scoffing at the audacity of Kaeya. He approaches his lab benches and a crack has emerged against the slab of rock he has been using as his table. Some of his scientific apparatus have tipped over and his notes have scattered because of the chill breeze. He slams his fists against the rocks, quite frustrated. Painting was the only thing that gifted Albedo the peace he sought for. The world of science, on the other hand, was knotty and rather taxing.
For Albedo, writing lines into pictures gave him much more solace.
Yet, it was a skill he was snatched of ever since he found himself in a depression he couldn’t pull himself out of. There was no true reason behind it, only a lingering sense of loneliness and purposelessness that grew into a never-ending existential questioning.
Time has only made it more obvious that he could not be fixed, and his ability to see colour only faded, widening the hole in his heart left from the weight of abandonment and loneliness. The world was subsequently reduced to a place that was too cold, too sinister and eternally dull. “You can talk to me, you know?” Kaeya suggests when he realises the situation cannot be salvaged from what he has left of it with his insensitivity. “I’m not a complete asshole—”
“You can show yourself out,” Albedo responds curtly, forcing composure into himself with a sharp inhale and a sting in his lungs. As the captain shifts, intending to protest, he turns and stares him dead in the eye with an unnerving blankness in his eyes void of emotion. “Please.”
Kaeya realises he much preferred anger than this… blankness. Digging his hands into his pockets, and rather nonchalantly, he strolls out the cave, face contorted into one of disturbance and… perhaps disappointment, in some twisted form. Albedo grunts, unimpressed and extremely annoyed, turning his back to the man. However, when he’s not looking, Kaeya glances back into the cave, observing Albedo fidgeting with his apparatus and wandering around the cave for a short while.
“I can’t get through to him at all,” he sighs to himself, and the words are bitter on his lips. It’s hard.
✶
And then Kaeya realises, after only an hour and too much yearning, that he must leave a better impression. He has learned from his astute and occasional observations that Albedo is a practical man, one who holds no unnecessary grudges for the sake of his own focus and mental well-being. He knows that with a little more consideration on his part, and a little less traitorous curiosity, he may be able to redeem himself and perhaps, he could find out what it is about Albedo.
Day 70: The greys have warmer undertones with hints of red. The shades of colours have a wider difference in saturation, and the portrait shows some understanding of colour. It’s working.
✶
When Albedo sees himself for the first time—
It hits him, for once, that he’s not human. It’s upon a thin layer of ice, where he notices a man with hollow blue eyes and platinum hair peering back up at him when he lowers his gaze. He feels an itch on his neck and his hands clasp around the muscles of his throat. A sob chokes out of him and tears crystallize at the edges of his eyelids, and they ache—no, burn. A crack emerges through the eyes, and it may be because of the sheer power of his raw gaze but he cannot look away—
He truly is the ugliest creature he has ever seen.
✶
Albedo learns, within little time, that peace doesn’t come easy to one who searches for it. He opens his eyes, and they are heavier today, so much so that he wishes to not wake up at all. He blinks away the bleariness in his eyes and he expects to see the icicles growing closer towards his chest, whittling harder because of the wind—but no—it’s someone else. “Was it not clear enough that your presence is not needed here?” he asks, acknowledging Kaeya who is peering over him from the side of his bed.
Kaeya returns far too often to the cave, always empty-handed and with the same statement: “I should see you as much as I can before this cruel place takes your life.” It might be the only intelligent observation he has made, and Albedo, for this reason, decides to relent. The captain keeps with himself several maps in his pockets, in the event that he forgets the way to the cave and loses the map. On days that Albedo isn’t home, Kaeya waits patiently, sitting with his legs kicked up against the wall or drawing abstract doodles on the floor with markers.
“Will you paint again?” Kaeya breathes, and the condensation of his warm breath against Dragonspine’s cold embrace graces the thawing skin of Albedo’s face. Relief flickers over the former’s eyes, which Albedo notices briefly with his careful eyes.
“Do you plan on making it a habit to watch me sleep?” the latter breathes, too, and his lungs are filled with the terrible, familiar ache. So, he does not. Albedo’s gaze falls instinctually on the vase on his work table, which has once again been filled with a fresh bouquet of flowers. The scent does not permeate nor spread because of the stillness of the air in the cave, but they serve good use in experiments so Albedo does not complain about the constant stock.
“No,” Kaeya responds simply. A collection of fallen canvases remain scattered around the cave, some half-hanging on the wall and others entirely strewn across the floor—some in a varied selection of “greys”, but none different from the others. Albedo pushes himself off the bed to pour a mug of cold tea from his thermos—one that he prepares every now and then when he can light a fire. It is the kindest gesture he offers during the captain’s repeated visits.
Nonetheless, at the end of the day, relationships are too much of a hassle for Albedo. They require feelings, and time—the time which he would much rather dedicate to his research or even painting, regardless of whether or not they progressed. And someone like him, who is destined to die unpredictably before everyone else—he would much rather spend his waking hours doing something significant. “You should leave. In a few minutes, it’ll be too difficult for you to navigate your way down the mountain,” Albedo suggests and it is his way of saying goodbye.
Albedo takes a step back and places his palms against his hips. He observes the painting in front of him. Alas, it is the same, and only a little better. Slate. Pewter. Abalone. One day, he would have to find medicine for people like him—those with no hope in love.
Day 103: No progress.
“Come here,” Kaeya beckons. Albedo, suddenly in a grim mood, rejects the offer. The captain, accustomed to the cold and distant behaviour is not fazed by the denial and instead approaches the latter himself, forcing him to turn with a squeeze to his shoulder. “Something in your eye,” he says gently, and a cloud of mist blows against Albedo’s cheek as the captain flicks dried ice off his face.
“What are you doing?” Albedo questions stiffly, hitting Kaeya’s arm away. He doesn’t enjoy proximity, a false illusion of appeal. The captain retracts his hand and says nothing else, except pick up an unlit torch and hold it to the lit fire of a single oil lamp in the alchemist’s cave. When he’s finally gone, Albedo notices a flicker of red—a colour, one he definitely cannot recognise but one that, in his knowledge, is not grey. He blinks, and the flash of colour vanishes. But he’s too sure.
Day 103: N̷o̷ ̷p̷r̷o̷g̷r̷e̷s̷s̷. I saw a colour for the first time today. It reminded me of fire, a beating heart, and the tenacity that is contained within a human.
✶
‘What are you doing?’ the question ghosts between them often, sometimes omnipresent and other times asked often by Albedo as he becomes victim to Kaeya’s spontaneity.
The captain has learned to be behave himself when he comes to the cave, but even his self-control has its limits. One such moment where he does allow Albedo to go undisturbed is when he is drawing—because these particular moments in time are crucial, as crucial as being in the midst of a discovery is.
“What are you doing?” Albedo asks, not doing so much as peel his eyes off his art.
“Nothing that will hurt you,” Kaeya responds this time, and for the first of the many times he has had his actions questioned by Albedo. He has been watching with an impatient silence from afar, legs folded against the tough ‘bed’ and hands cupped around his foot. It was a routine that followed whenever he made the mistake of arriving when Albedo was in the midst of his painting, and he would sit and watch from afar with a gentle, mesmerised gaze. Albedo’s hair is damp from waking up to an icicle melting over his head, but he has not bothered to dry it out of annoyance. “Pardon me,” he excuses and shifts gently towards Albedo.
His abdomen touches Albedo’s back and his fingers are still gently combing Albedo’s hair. “You’re tickling me,” the artist argues, eyebrows furrowed as the unfamiliarity of this closeness irks him, leaving him vaguely uncomfortable. He later realises that it is not discomfort but nervousness, and curiosity in a vastly different form. Kaeya runs his fingers through Albedo’s hair, watching absently as they fall between the crack of his fingers. Doing as he has done before with Klee, he pulls cecilias from the nearby vase and weaves them into his hair, the colour of their petals pairing beautifully with the shade of Albedo’s hair.
Albedo doesn’t hate this feeling. It’s intimate, and very, very foreign. He can smell Kaeya’s fragrance from how close he is, and it is the sweetened scent of a summer breeze. And in response to this, he gulps. “You’re beautiful,” Kaeya comments, taking a step back to admire what he regards as his masterpiece. Much beyond the hair only, but Albedo himself as he turns his head and lifts a hand smudged with graphite to his hair. His lips curl.
Kaeya is more surprised than he is relieved. “You like that?”
“I don’t hate it.” And it’s good enough to inflate Kaeya’s pride. He swings his arm victoriously in front of his hip, prancing proudly. Albedo turns his head away shyly, unusually embarrassed. “Now, leave,” he tells him, turning his attention back to his painting. It’s merely an excuse to hide his face.
Kaeya shakes his head, having expected such a response. “Harsh as ever, chief,” he feigns sadness, melodramatically slamming his palm against his chest. Albedo turns, this time to show a deadpan expression and it’s all that the captain ever wished to see. His pout growing into a wide grin, he waves enthusiastically and exclaims, “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I know you will.”
When Kaeya is gone again, Albedo dips his head and presses his hand against his lips. His eyes widen in shock and heat rises to his cheeks rapidly, accompanied by the asynchronous beating of his heart. As a result of his feeble effort, he ultimately fails to disguise the smile that creeps onto his face. But it is something only he would—should know about. Some feelings are better off unacknowledged.
✶
When Albedo sees himself again, for the second time—
It is not in a shattered mirror, or the frozen water of a lake, but in a sketch that Kaeya accidentally left behind in the study. He holds it in his trembling hand, and he wonders why he looks so—alive. He has never drawn himself before, never once, but he knows himself well enough to know he has never looked this way. But he’s beautiful, and he’s so bright, and he thinks only Kaeya could see him in this light. His muscles struggle to clench and when they do, he crushes the paper with such force that creases erupt against its surface immediately.
“You cannot see me this way,” he shivers and a gold pours from his lips. He dips his head against his lap and he lurches forward, coughing and bleeding on the floor. And later, when Kaeya comes and asks about the golden stains, he’ll say it’s paint.
✶
Albedo learns, soon and in due time, that it’s not easy to die. There has never been a time in his life before this, when Albedo wants nothing more than to perish—to simply vanish with no memory of himself left behind him. And for once, he prays that he can abandon his duty because he does not need—but he so desperately wants to die. Albedo lies cold on the floor of his abode, which has become more of a laboratory than it is a home. Books that tell tall tales of Mondstadt’s tragic history lie in tatters around him amidst half-empty bottles of paint, staining the floor beyond any possibility of resolution. “I’m sick of this,” Albedo utters, and the words leave his tongue with so much agony, he writhes. “I’m so sick of everything.”
Albedo wipes a hand roughly against his bleeding lips and forces himself back up. Out of annoyance, and with the weight of another failure, he swings at his equipment. The glassware is sent shattering against the ground, glass shards flying at him and grazing his skin. One cuts deep enough to slice through his flesh, leaving him with an excruciating gaping wound on his forearm. Albedo, unbothered, continues ripping the paper off his walls, throwing his paintings to the ground and breaking anything that he lays his eyes on.
“Everything’s such a waste.”
He has lived, and he must now die at the clutches of his ruined hands. It would be his best gift to himself, and the world. His book of research lies open and limp, basking in its futility, several flipped pages stained with liquids from being often in the midst of Albedo’s impatient tantrums. “Chalk pursues gold, but they are not compatible together as substances,” his mind echoes to him, calling out to him from the buried depths of his mind. “It dissolves at the faint touch of liquid; and in the same way, you are vulnerable to no one, except yourself.”
Albedo’s tired eyes dart around, desperate, wild. His gaze lands on an unfinished painting—one that he had forgotten about completely—and it sits at the very corner, where it was safe from his continuing destruction. It is a portrait of two boys in Monstadt, one’s arm slung around the other, both admiring the picturesque landscape. But the image he once had whilst painting has long left him. He kicks past the clutter on the ground, holding his palette in his palms. He cannot go on. Trout. Anchor. Pearl.
Day xxx.: Everything’s so gray.
And it’s no surprise when an awaited miracle never happens, and the world wilts into hopelessness, leaving Albedo with no remaining hope of ever seeing it the same way as the rest. Even the earthy browns he could once understand have frozen over into whites and grays. He, himself, lacks much colour—his tangled hair, shabby clothes, shattering skin. Colours drain themselves before him like a monounsaturated landscape and his eyes blur. He collapses to his knees, but they are coloured far too blue to be bruised anymore. “I have failed you, and more than that, I have failed myself.”
When he pulls his hands away from his head, there are chunks of hair falling through the gaps of his fingers. Albedo rests his forehead against the ground, slamming his fists once, twice and many more times, going faster and faster until they’ve flushed red. Albedo feels the ringing in his ears get louder until they’re deafening, until he hears a familiar voice in the distance.
“Albedo? Albedo—” it cries out, immediately cutting off when it is close enough to be heard clearly. Albedo does not have enough strength to look up, but he can feel the figure of someone kneeling beside him. The painter feels scared, nimble hands hover cautiously over his back. But when he turns his head beside him, there is someone vastly different from grey—a man in blue, tan skin with lilac eyes. The realisation hits Albedo like an icicle to his chest, a final stroke of victory and it is more satisfying than having life itself. He is then being shaken, harshly and roughly.
“You—you’re blue…” Albedo breathes. He extends a shivering hand, and he is now scared, feeling as though this is a false illusion—tricks being played on him by his own eyes. The captain does not object as his thin, scarred fingers curl around his hair, playing with his ponytail. Albedo is astonished at the sight of colour, and the attachment that follows is no different from obsession. It’s brief—really brief—the span within which it happens, but his mind does not release the memory. Kaeya’s silhouette leaks gentle blues, his figure highlighted by the sunlight behind him.
And when the colours melt into grey again, Albedo is not angry. He yearns. “I wish I could see colours again,” Albedo says experimentally, and it is the first time he has wished for something with so much passion. He handles Kaeya with so much care, as though he would with a test subject. “For just a second, I did. For the first time, I saw the real you.”
And if he could see the colours again, he would like to see the world through Kaeya’s eyes. The captain nods, and he has already started to fall apart at the sight of Albedo looking so hurt. The latter loosens his grip around Kaeya’s hair. It falls, and he recoils, his smile curving once again into an unchanging frown. “As soon as it started, everything is grey again.” Maybe, he is disappointed. A single drop of blood slips off Albedo’s wrist.
Kaeya’s chest tightens, which is a rather painful sensation in Dragonspine where the air is already painfully thin. “...Can I hold you?”
He does not expect a response to this. But Albedo nods once, and the captain does not waste a moment on needless hesitation. He lifts the alchemist’s dainty wrists up to his eyeline and meets Albedo’s eyes over them. Numerous bruises and gashes line the entire length of his arm, some bleeding, others clotted.
“Can I touch you?”
Albedo nods again. Kaeya plants tiny kisses along Albedo’s limp arm. The feeling is surreal, the sudden warmth of Kaeya’s lips being replaced by the hard-hitting chill of his cold breath before he’s taken aback by another warm kiss again. Albedo feels his heart jump a little from the touch, partly from the adrenaline and partly because of a reason he is forbidden to think about.
Kaeya rubs Albedo’s scrawny wrist with his thumb and when he musters the courage to look into Albedo’s cold eyes, he speaks, “Did you do this to yourself?”
The confrontation still hurts even though Albedo knows perfectly well what’s been doing to himself. Or he’s pretty sure he does—but on mos mornings, he cannot remember what happened the night before when he had been hurting himself half-asleep. All that serve as reminders are the debris of the tornado spun by himself, fragmented memories and broken dreams. Albedo does not give a response. “Can I be here?” Kaeya stutters, wanting to stay. However, he expects to be turned away like the other times he has tried to cross a boundary. But Albedo nods, and this time he does with a weak smile.
The emotion that follows cannot be described in mere relief, but through a mixture of words that does not exist in language. The worry that had been pulsating through his chest like a tumour is suddenly ripped away, and it is only a strong feeling of wanting to protect. “I wish you could show me all the colours,” Albedo speaks up, and his voice is fragmented with his words spoken through heavy breaths. Kaeya presses his forehead regretfully against Albedo’s cold, cold hands.
“You don’t need to know everything about the world.”
“I miss them. I miss understanding, knowing. Seeing.”
“Someday, I’ll be able to show you the colours you want to see,” Kaeya promises, but it is so desperate, it sounds as though he is trying to convince himself that he would one day be able to. He lifts his gaze, and with as much emotion as he can muster in his gaze, he looks Albedo forcefully in the eye. “Till then, all you need is to understand me.”
And it is a demand, a ‘don’t leave me’ because he does not know how he could possibly live after he has reached this point in his life.
✶
Kaeya has insisted on staying in the cave out of concern for returning to the sight of Albedo’s corpse in the cave and him never having a chance to save him. Hours after the incident, neither of them speak to each other about the conversation—both remembering either too little or deciding it is too difficult to talk about it. Kaeya lifts up a huge straw basket onto the bed, removing the cloth to reveal a huge array of items. He had arrived with it earlier, when he discovered—
“Drink up,” Kaeya says with a smile, pushing aside any thoughts that would make this more difficult.
Albedo, hesitant, accepts the metal thermos from Kaeya’s hands and uncaps it. He is hit instantly by the sweet smell of hot chocolate. Having a sweet tooth, it is a drink he enjoys dearly, but something he hasn’t had the luxury to try in ages because of the lack of ingredients and his fatigue. Meanwhile, Kaeya pulls out a large checkered cloth from the basket. He nails hooks onto crevices above the openings of the cave, also striking Albedo with the realisation of how tall he actually is.
Then, he rolls out a blanket and rests it over Albedo’s lap. “Oh,” the alchemist responds, having not expected the sudden approach. “Thank you,” he adds and hides his face in the thermos. Kaeya takes a seat beside him, pushing the empty straw basket to the side.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long while,” Kaeya admits, but this confession comes out of the blue, and with no warning at all. Albedo, not particularly intrigued by this honesty, nods in acknowledgement. A cold gust of wind blows at the curtains, sending them flying inwards and even hitting Kaeya a little but the curtains remain firm on their hooks. Albedo’s heart warms up a little.
“Mmm,” Albedo hums in response to the perfectly sweet taste of hot chocolate against his sugar-deprived tongue. He has been living only off cold porridge and radish stew from whatever little resources he can fetch from the camp at the foot of the mountains. “The person you love must be the luckiest person in the world,” he says as an addition, but he had never intended to. He has had this thought several times—the possibility of Kaeya being in love. With how enthusiastically he bursts into the cave on some days, face reddened further than on others, Albedo has had this subconscious thought.
Albedo was never particularly fond of this thought, and he later wrote it off as his general discomfort regarding being speculative about someone else’s life. He wonders why he voiced the statement out loud, but it never shows on his face. Kaeya straightens his back, standing properly. “What makes you think that there’s someone I’m interested in?” Albedo meets his eye and he must admit—the captain is an impeccable actor.
“There is a look in your eyes.”
“What kind?” Kaeya smirks, and he is now standing amongst the clutter which has been half-cleaned over the past hours. He leans against the backrest of a chair, elbows pressed up against it. Albedo takes another sip out of the drink in his thermos before setting it down at his side contentedly.
“You carry the aura of the stars.”
Kaeya is so taken aback by the response that his smile falls. Albedo wonders if he said something wrong, but the captain’s heated face later tells him otherwise. It’s humourous, how he is so cocky by nature but gets embarrassed at an easy compliment. A beat passes and Kaeya makes a deliberative expression with pursed lips and eyes turned away from the only other person in the space. “What if I said it’s you?” And even though he pretends otherwise, Albedo knows what he means.
“What are you saying?” he asks again, but he hopes for a different answer. But he and Kaeya are too intelligent to read through the pretense of the other’s demeanour, and the captain easily reads into his feigned confusion. Albedo tenses up, and in his chest is a burning flame that is more intense than anger, or fear, or passion—but he despises it. He can’t acknowledge it. Please don’t, he begs internally as he notices the shift in Kaeya’s posture and how he’s approaching closer.
“The lucky person has always been you.”
As indirect as it is, Albedo knows that he cannot pretend. When Kaeya is standing in front of him, extending a hand to angle his jaw upwards and bring their eyes together in a forced meeting, Albedo panics and the situation is suddenly all too real. It is scary, the realness of it all, and even Kaeya has lost the usual light-hearted smile that wears itself on his lips.
Albedo’s heart races madly out of rhythm to the ghost of the confession that remains lingering in the tenseness of the atmosphere. It must be because he knows what he has to say—and he has always known. And all of a sudden, his heart is empty again, what little he had earned in the form of building moments of their time together dissolving into nothingness. “I’m not looking for a relationship, Kaeya,” Albedo mutters, and it’s not the answer but the lack of emotion that is painful. His skin creases as he scrunches his face and turns it away, trying to hide the pain in his tone.
“Do you like how I’m always here for you?” Kaeya questions, desperate “How I shower you with gifts, cuddle you, and give you kisses?” he asks, clutching desperately onto Albedo’s clammy hands. Albedo wants to pull away, and he wishes he could run and disappear—hiding away in a universe far from this one as a renewed version of himself, pure and uncontaminated by this godforsaken world.
Albedo’s heart squelches. “I don’t know if I feel the same way, if that’s what you’re asking—” he replies, softer this time as though he is not content with his answer. Kaeya pulls away, and he simply stands there, appalled with both hands limp at his sides. He laughs, and suddenly his eyes are glistening, not in the way Albedo has ever seen them.
“Is it a right person, wrong time situation—?” he asks, and really, there is no answer to this question.
“It is a wrong person situation, Kaeya,” he spits and it sounds more as a lashing than a response. Kaeya recoils, stepping backwards with struggling steps. He rubs the back of his neck, awkward as his jaw remains clenched tightly. “I mean, I—I can’t love… Anyone would be the wrong person. I just—can’t,” Albedo tries to elaborate but his words fail him.
“Right. I get it. I tried too hard,” Kaeya says with a pained laugh, wiping his arm against his face. “I’m sorry, Albedo.” He does not spare another moment in the room, and it is all too painful for the both of them to leave things this way. Kaeya turns and leaves before Albedo realises it, leaving in his absence the thermos which has gotten cold and the mess of a relationship Albedo should not have ventured. Oh. Albedo stares incredulously at the waving curtains at the opening of the cave.
I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.
✶
Kaeya doesn’t show up for a month after the confession.
Soon after, Albedo received orders to return to the Knights of Favonius promptly to propose an Expedition to build up resources for a new hilichurl problem in the Southwest. It was perfect timing—Albedo needed a reason to return to Mondstadt, and a break from the cold.
Albedo has always felt out of place in the city, unknown to its citizens but sworn to it by duty. It was one of the reasons he chose to conduct his research in Dragonspine instead, in his own little home built up by himself. It used to be a home once, when the bitter cold had not reduced it to a cold casket waiting for the death of a half-dead creature. From the ledge in front of his cave, if he looks in the right direction, he can catch a glimpse of a distant city’s silhouette. His expertise, however, does not extend far enough for him to know of its name.
With the newly-assigned task, Albedo has continued to loiter through the city’s winding roads, day in and day out, plunging himself into social interaction with strangers he’s never seen. “Have you seen Kaeya?” Albedo has always wanted to ask but the words would clot on his tongue.
Albedo was desperate to find Kaeya again. In his mind, he was always searching. When strolling past open doors, he would wait for Kaeya’s name to be given to him. The feeling of not having someone by his side every day tied knots in his heart, even with all the time he spends on his own. He would spend hours staring out at the city landscape, telling himself that he would be fine without Kaeya. He had nothing to apologise for, and nothing to feel sorry about.
Albedo had gotten too accustomed to having someone to think about, someone to scold when they touch the wrong things, someone to care about even a little. He could not let go of it. “Love is too difficult for me,” Albedo would draw on his walls in chalk and markers. So, he would continue drawing. He manifested circles and conjured lines and before long, it was a portrait of his favourite captain, merged out of nothing except fragmented memories in his mind.
Kaeya’s office remains cold and empty, with absolutely no sign of life. The air has stilled and the bookshelves stay dusty, the same stack of paperwork unmoving on his desk. Albedo has even consulted Lisa at the Ordo, who informed him Kaeya never showed up at the library for his routine readings. Albedo even tries to catch Jean, who only turned him away with a frantic expression and the usual excuse, “Sorry, I’ve got too much to do!”
Albedo, dumping his last stack of proposals on Jean’s desk, returns to Dragonspine with no hesitation. He wants to get back to his reclusive life, where he doesn’t have to stare at people’s faces and risk losing them. It’s too much for him, to have someone and having them slip out right beneath his fingers.
Maybe he didn’t try hard enough, so it never hurt Kaeya to live. Maybe he was too harsh, and too stupid to admit to his feelings. But is it so wrong to want to wait? Albedo was long away from coming to terms with the fluttering in his heart upon Kaeya’s affections. But he could not deny that his rejection was too harsh, and too cold, and all he wanted at the time was a break from the gravity of it all. So, perhaps, yes—it’s wrong to ask for time at the expense of another.
✶
The atmosphere in Dragonspine is much colder today, on the day he decides to return. Albedo is stopped by adventurers at the camp, those who warn him about the snowstorms up in Dragonspine. They claim that many went in but are yet to return, and it’s been insufferable up in the mountains for days now—but it is perfect, and he cares little enough to venture right into the storm. Truly, what does he have to lose?
In a dull, boring world like his own, there is no reason to have his eyes open. Graphite. Flint. Fog—shades he has started to label himself because they’ve started to make less and less of a difference. Albedo, not heeding any warnings, continues on his way up the mountain. He trudges, clutching his chest as a struggled breath condenses into a cloud of mist past his lips. His mind wavers till he doesn’t know where it is, yet he keeps moving, on and ahead on auto-pilot, cursing under his breath. “Of course he vanishes with no explanation at all. Of course he was only with me to save his pride,” he chants under his breath, and later his excuses sound like reasons.
Hail rains down around Albedo, missing him by the hair every time. His hair is blown into a disarray and he can barely hold down his honorary scarf of the Knights’. A short distance away, he spots the entrance of his cave, a brief shade of magenta caught by his eyes. It’s close to difficult to catch, especially with the heavy snow that buries it.
Ah, Albedo winces when rocks are pelted onto him. One hits him hard enough to graze his shoulder, grazing it slightly. Albedo should’ve been underground with the amount of snow that’s on him. The cold is almost unbearable now that some parts of his clothes have ripped. In a fervent attempt to get himself to safety, he quickens his pace. His efforts go in vain. The snow is too thick to shovel through with just his legs. His eyes flutter open weakly and with much effort, snowflakes perching upon them before fettering them down because of the cold.
Minutes after minutes pass and only after a painstaking amount of effort, is Albedo’s home. Anything close to one, at least. His makeshift laboratory is in shambles, much like himself, little trinkets and equipment tossed onto the ground by the force of the wind. The curtains hit him from behind roughly, repeatedly. He is not disappointed that his research has been destroyed—no, it was not the reason he came here. He is disappointed that the only reminder of his closeness to Kaeya is in bits.
Albedo turns to his canvas, which sits alone on the easel. He does not know how it has managed to withstand the wind long enough to stay standing. He looks up to his sketch of Kaeya and once again, he recoils. His head starts to ache from the ghastly cold. “I hope you’re happy,” Albedo says, and there is only bitterness towards himself.
He holds his paintings, and whatever sketches he can find, and the leather notebook with recordings of his recovery, all of which he holds only with his arms. He steps outside, and the snowstorm seems to have worsened. Albedo’s muscles start to contract, still functioning but in pain. A single tear of exhaustion makes the mistake of leaving his eyelid, freezing onto his cheek even before it can reach his chin. Albedo wipes his eyes roughly, but his papers fly out from beneath him. Albedo, panicked, reaches for them but he doesn’t have long enough arms to catch them, no matter how agile he is.
Another bout of snow whacks into him. This one knocks him in the side of his head, cutting him deep. Blood trickles along the curve of his face. He reaches a finger towards the achy sensation yet on his blood-stained fingers he sees nothing more than a pale pink. The weather has numbed much pain he feels, be it emotional or physical Albedo walks, and walks, but all of a sudden he can’t see anything anymore. The ground shifts beneath his feet as he tries to comb through the dense snow until he can feel tremors, faint ones.
Next time he knows it, he’s on the ground, lying face-up under a pile of powdered snow. Somewhere, there’s a heat warmer and there are spruce trees shaven of their leaves, and a disturbing number of hilichurls within a radius of him. He tries to extend an arm to push himself up but the fatigue prevents him from trying. And then he realises, he would not have come out here if he did not wish to die. It would not make a difference, whether his empty conscience bled out or if he froze over from the inside. There’s no use for a hollow being—after all, he could not do as little as see the world as everyone else during the passage of his lifetime.
Albedo stares blankly ahead, and he is not sad. His paintings lie scattered around him, only proof of his existence and research should his only notebook get lost in the snow. He brushes snow off his face till only snowflakes freckle his skin. Ashwood. Baltic. Sabre grey. He tries to clench his hand around—not his book, but his incomplete canvas painting of him and Kaeya—but when he fails to do so, an odd kind of emptiness fills him again and it suddenly hits him now, that this is what death is.
“Albedo? Is that you, Albedo?!” a voice is heard in the distance, but Albedo keeps his eyes closed, for he mistakes it for the wind playing tricks on a dying man. It sounds like an unholy howl, the shrieking of a wraith more than it could be a human’s. “Wake up,” he is told, and he does as an intense warmth is pressed up against him, shaking him with desperation.
“Albedo…” the voice says finally, and with so much pain that what remnants are left of the organ in Albedo’s chest squelches in response. Albedo’s eyes open slowly, and slowly, he sees a wild storm of faint blues flashing in front of his vision. His heart squeezes. Albedo looks up with his bleeding face, tears frozen onto his cheeks. He sits up, shivering terribly, but alive. “...You’re bleeding,” Kaeya observes, frantically trying to hold Albedo together.
“You must be right,” is all he can say when the man he has been searching for is now beside him in such close proximity. The captain kneels with one knee keeping him up, reaching a hand for Albedo’s chin. Albedo flinches, pushing him away. Pause. “...Why are you here?” Albedo questions, desperate to know why Kaeya would carelessly throw himself in the middle of a snowstorm, and attempt to save someone who should have been dead.
Kaeya’s lips quiver. Partly from the cold, partly because he’s scared. “I… I was sent on an Expedition here— I promised Jean I would do a commission for her and I couldn’t deny it—” he tries to justify himself, but the cold has left him incapable of speaking. “It was my fault,” Kaeya admits finally after some time of delaying and bringing his words in circles. “I sent myself off so I wouldn’t have to see you. Pretty bad considering I ended up here anyway but—”
“Is it still me then?” Albedo asks, cutting him off. There is a brief regret that follows, and then a throb beneath his chest and it is the first indication that he is alive. His crystal eyes are squinted as he holds himself in his arms, rocking due to the harsh, unforgiving cold. And then he thinks, it’s best that he says the words now, because what if he were to die on the way down? Who would say it for him then?
“What?”
“Am I still the lucky person?”
Kaeya’s eyes widen at his epiphany. He clasps his hand over his mouth, averting his gaze in embarrassment. Albedo’s vision flickers. “I just want to be there for you as I said I would. I won’t ask for more,” is what he responds, voice etched with desperation. Snow melts at the touch of his warm scalp, leaving his hair cold and damp, but there is nothing more sickening than a situation like this playing all over again—and the looming possibility of rejection waiting to happen.
“I can learn. I want to,” Albedo confesses, dipping his head. His gaze is fixated on the way Kaeya’s hands are clasped around his own and maybe, just maybe it’ll be alright.
Kaeya does not need to ask to know what he means. So instead, he leans forward and mumbles a gentle but cautious request, “Can I hug you?” Albedo doesn’t make him wait. Instead, he reaches forward, slowly, but eventually wraps his arms around Kaeya’s chest. He rests his ear against it, tucked comfortably like there’s no better place in the world—and beneath it, he can vaguely hear the thumping of a heart. He counts it’s rhythm, till eventually a beat passes.
Neither know what to say. Maybe they shouldn’t at all, because at least if they die here then they’ll die the most content people in the world. Even then, they try. Be it on the brink of death, they keep trying to reach out to each other. Get through to one another. I’m there, they speak through unsaid words.
“I won’t leave you again, Albedo. I’ll show you all the colours.” And that is his promise.
When Albedo looks up for what feels like infinity tucked into a moment in time, his head throbbing and limbs aching, Kaeya is painted in colour and his own kind of blue. Turquoise. Cerulean. Azure.