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Kaeya watches with an attentive eye as Diluc rustles around a box in his Father’s room.
“Are you sure we can be here?” He asks cautiously, tensing as Diluc turns fast enough to give him whiplash with a wide grin as bright as the vision he bore.
“Of course! Father lets me in here whenever I want,” Diluc boasts, showing off a hair accessory with a criticizing gaze. “Besides, this box in here is mine. I need it to tie my hair up sometimes! Since it’s mine, I’m allowed to do what I want with it.” Kaeya nods hesitantly, taking a careful step forward as Diluc beckons him.
“Would he be okay with me using your stuff?” He prods, a cautionary note in his voice, as if he couldn’t trust that he’d be accepted so easily. Diluc hums, pouting. Kaeya rarely sees him act like this near his Father or the other knights and maids, so he assumes he’s special. The thought makes him nervous and giddy.
“It’s my stuff,” Diluc says confidently, rummaging through his belongings for another hair tie he would deem worthy. “And you’re my brother, not his. You’re his son, silly! He shouldn’t get in our business when it’s ours alone.”
Kaeya blinks once, then blinks twice. His eyes feel wet and his heart feels light, and he grins. “You really think so?” He sits himself down next to Diluc, who stares at him with passionate eyes, as red as the fire he brings upon.
“I don’t think so, I know so!” Diluc’s tone leaves no room for argument, so Kaeya complies with a happy smile and a gleeful feeling he can’t place. “Now come here, let’s braid each other’s hair!” Kaeya frowns a bit, hands playing with the clothes he was offered.
“But- I don’t know how to braid hair,” he complains, a tremor to his voice in fear of failure and hatred, for sullying the mood with his incompetence. Diluc merely blinks.
“Then I can teach you.” Diluc states nonchalantly, finally finding a red hair tie for Kaeya and a matching blue for himself. “Father taught me, too. Look, you just do this!” He demonstrates happily, taking a piece of Kaeya’s hair and braiding it with a practiced ease. Kaeya blinks in wonder, smiling with a freeness he rarely expressed.
They take turns braiding pieces of each other’s hair until the hair remaining looks as if it can never be braided. “We should remove some of the braids we practiced on, so we can have a big braid altogether.” Kaeya thinks, eye peeking up at Diluc for confirmation. There’s a silence as Diluc contemplates this, pouting after he gives it thought.
“But then your hard work would be erased. Why can’t we just make a big braid with our remaining hair and the small braids? Father did that for me, once,” Diluc reminisces, hands reaching out to Kaeya.
He feels bad for flinching away. Diluc doesn’t comment on it, merely easing himself into Kaeya’s space again and braiding small braids into the last pieces of hair Kaeya had. Kaeya feels himself sigh at the nice feeling of someone’s hands so gently carding through his hair and leans into the touch.
Diluc offers a giggle at that, then takes his hands away. Kaeya opens his eye he was unaware of closing, gazing at Diluc curiously before he grins back.
“Now do my hair for me, Kaeya!” Diluc pleads, eyes widening and glistening, accentuating his red eyes more. Kaeya finds it hard to deny, offering a chaste laugh before nodding. Diluc’s hair has a few tangles in them, so Kaeya tries not to cringe when Diluc tenses at a particularly hard tug at his hair.
When Kaeya finishes, Diluc stares at his braid with awe and wonderment Kaeya never had directed to him before, and Kaeya decides that he enjoys being called brother.
“Look, now we match!” Diluc cheers, eyes bright and innocent with delight. Kaeya mimics his response, hoping he looks genuine enough. “Now we really look like brothers!” Kaeya feels his heart expand with a desire for more of this brotherhood and family, eyes growing wet again. He nods aggressively, and only stops when Diluc chastises him, fearful of his braid growing loose.
“Thanks for teaching me,” Kaeya smiles, eyes turning into crescents at how hard he was smiling. “Can we keep our hair like this?”
Diluc’s eyes are so bright and happy. “Of course! Let’s braid our hair like this forever!” He cheers, and Kaeya can’t help but laugh alongside him, despite his loyalties lying in Khaenri’ah.
~
Kaeya watches as Diluc and Crepus walk in with Kaeya’s birthday cake, decorated with his favorite flowers and Diluc’s favorite flowers.
Kaeya’s heart swells, and he smiles happily. “All for me? You all love me that much?” He teases, a coy remark despite the big grin on his face. Diluc smiles before shaking his head, amused at his antics.
“Of course not! You have to share with me, too. Father and I made it for you.” He says proudly, smiling wider as Crepus himself laughs, the noise filling the room with a different warmth that Kaeya wants to hold onto.
“There’s enough cake for everyone,” He says, eyes bright in a way Diluc’s eyes mimic. Kaeya hopes his eyes are just as bright. Diluc gazes at him expectantly, and Crepus rolls his eyes with a smile. “No wine. Both of you aren’t old enough.”
Kaeya laughs, fluttering his eyelashes as if pleading with him, “Just a sip? It’s my birthday, afterall. We won’t get drunk.” Crepus raises a brow, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff and an amused shake of his head, and Kaeya is once again reminded of how similar Diluc and his Father are.
Diluc tugs on his Father’s shirt sleeve, smiling at him. “It’s Kaeya’s birthday with us, Father,” he reasons. “Just a taste wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Crepus sighs, running a hand through his hair in faked exasperation, and Kaeya giggles behind his hand.
“Alright,” he says, lifting his hands up as if in surrender. “I give up. Just one sip, the two of you. I’m watching you.” he compromises, shaking his head with a fondness Kaeya feels can warm him up, even if they were in the depths of the Abyss.
(With just one sip of wine, Diluc could barely stand without feeling dizzy, and Kaeya and Crepus both had the time of their lives watching him complain.)
Kaeya hears nothing but the pounding in his ears and the near silent cries from his brother just alongside the path.
Kaeya’s eye widens, feeling sick at the sight. His Father’s arm is completely torn off, and Diluc’s cradling him similar to how he would cradle the two of them in his lap to read them a story, and his heart aches all the more. Aside from his Father himself, there are knights around them who are killed as well. He wishes for a moment that he’s seeing the situation wrong.
He walks forward slowly, as if approaching a trapped and startled animal, and his gut sinks at Diluc’s expression.
Dilucs eyes look unresponsive, dead if not for the tears glittering his eyes and cheeks with a somber tone of acceptance. If Kaeya were to try denying his Father’s death now, he’d seem a fool, for why else would his brother cry out? His brother, who showed nothing but kindness to him, and refused to let sadness keep him anchored to possibilities, who never cried.
“Diluc?” He calls out, tone barely a whisper compared to the howling winds above, as if grieving the loss of a great man. “Diluc, can you hear me?” Diluc blinks, gaze rising to Kaeya with grief and hatred. He wants to flinch away. To think that a mere hours before, they were braiding each other's hair for the festivities of Diluc’s birthday.
“You were late,” Diluc croaks, voice breaking with what he would have called pathetic, but his heart clenches and he feels like he can’t breathe. “You were late.” Kaeya hangs his head in shame, gaze centering on his shoes and the blood stained soil beneath them. He wants to purge the memory of Diluc teasing him about his near late arrival to his birthday’s celebration.
“I’m sorry.” Kaeya says, knowing sorry won’t do anything. He wants nothing more for whatever attacked and killed so many to kill him, as well. Diluc’s gaze falls back to the body of his father.
“I had to kill him.” Diluc says dryly, melancholy haunting his overall happy tone. “I had to kill him, because he was in so much pain.” Kaeya wants to throw up, not only because of the horrors his brother had to face because of him running late, but because of his eyes .
His eyes, usually so expressive and forgiving, are full of hate (towards who? Kaeya hopes it’s towards him.) and so, so much sadness. Kaeya wants to hug him, but his arms feel like lead. He wants to redo Diluc’s falling braid, but he can’t even move his fingers.
“Kaeya,” Diluc cries softly, eyes brimming with tears again. “You were late,”
Kaeya doesn’t want to think of where his loyalties lie.
~
“I’m sorry,” Kaeya starts, aware sorry won’t fix anything of their tarnished relationship. He wants Diluc’s blade to cleave him in half. “I’m sorry.” Kaeya repeats.
Diluc’s heaving, arms littered with burn scars, from his own flames and Kaeya’s new visions’ outburst, causing frostburn. His eyes reflect nothing but the dying light of his own flames and Kaeya’s newly acquired ice.
“I’m sorry.” Kaeya says again, blinking back what had to be tears.
“Kaeya,” Diluc spits out, eyes burning with hatred and woe, eyes rising up to meet Kaeya’s. Kaeya smiles, watching as Diluc raises his blade again, exhaustion from exertion or exhaustion from the day itself roots itself into his grip. “Aren’t you in pain?”
Kaeya smiles, laughing a bit as he brandishes his own blade, though not pointed so haphazardly towards his brother. “You have the tone of a man, grieving someone he’s already lost.” He comments, gaze flickering over to Diluc, trying to see him react, see something in his eyes other than the dull light of the remnants of their fight that’s not quite ended.
There’s nothing there but grief and anger.
“I have lost someone,” Diluc whispers, tone trembling with a lack of neutrality he had not yet mastered, and Kaeya’s gut sinks. “I’ve lost my Father, and now I want nothing more than to lose you.” Diluc’s gaze brings itself back up to Kaeya’s before gazing up at the heavens. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
“I’m sorry.” Kaeya says, gazing downwards. For a moment, he takes the blade to his throat before pausing, instead slashing at the braid they had decided to match each other with, to celebrate Diluc’s birthday. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t split the cake together.”
Diluc’s gaze hardens, watching his hair fall. “I’m not.”
Kaeya smiles, watching his severed braid fall, as well. “I know,” he whispers, grip falling slack as his blade slides downward to the ground his Father was buried in. He closes his eyes, willing the rain to be a worthy excuse for the tear rolling down his cheek. “I wish you were.”
He wishes he knew he was completely loyal to his nation or his brother’s.
~
Diluc slams the mansion’s door behind him, fury accentuating his footsteps. He’d already sent the maids on leave, to process the loss of his Father, so he can throw whatever temper tantrum he wants.
He doesn’t know where he’s going, so he slams whatever room’s door’s open, storming inside with heavy breaths. He wants to be angry at Kaeya, wanting to see him fall limp; if not dead, unconsciousness would be enough. He wants to forsake Kaeya altogether from his life.
He can’t find the reason to, and he crumbles in his Father’s room.
Diluc blinks tears out of his eyes, shaking with the effort to stay silent. He doesn’t want to remember anything anymore, doesn’t want to remember his own brother’s efforts of stifling whatever pained noises would’ve come out during their fight. He doesn’t want to remember Kaeya’s tears, doesn’t want to remember him not quite accepting himself as his brother anymore, doesn’t want to remember that a God viewed Kaeya worthy, and that that was the only thing stopping him from killing who he used to view as a brother.
Most of all, he wants to forget he ever lived like a family with his own Father and Kaeya.
Before he knows it, he himself is wiping tears from his eyes and sniffling. He’s shaking at the foot of his late Father’s bed, and he’s wishing he never wanted to celebrate his birthday. He hiccups, sobbing as the day’s events catch up to him, curling into himself more.
He grabs at his hair, trying to yank on strands before realizing his braid is still in place. There’s a blissful pause where all he can hear is his labored breathing and the rain outside before he’s overwhelmed with grief.
His hands tangle through his braid, fingers grabbing on too hard to his hair to be considered accidental, watching strands of his hair be ripped out and clenched in his fist before he realizes he’s undone the braid Kaeya tried so hard on. The braid Kaeya spent 30 minutes on to complete and make it look perfect.
Diluc screams, kicking his legs out with anger and grief unlike anything he’s experienced, screaming out things he doesn’t understand. He weeps out apologies and messages of hate for Kaeya, sobs out what he wished didn’t happen.
When he’s finished, he walks downstairs to where his Father and Kaeya made his cake. They never got to eat it, because Father wanted to bring Diluc somewhere else, and Kaeya and Diluc were respectively too excited to eat. As he sits down in Kaeya’s seat, he takes out a knife and carves out a misshapen slice of cake, putting it onto his plate with a recklessly placed candle.
He blows the fire out as soon as he starts it, and he silently cries out his birthday wishes.
Diluc can’t eat his cake, instead wishing that he knew his brother cared for their nation