Chapter Text
“You must enter now and complete the trial.” Arms crossed and standing above the entrance of Taishan Mansion, Xiao was quietly assessing Diluc. “That is, if you really want to be able to see him again.”
Diluc tried to respond to the provocation, or even snarl at the green haired Adeptus, but by the time he looked up, Xiao was nowhere to be seen. Looking back at the grand entrance made Diluc pause for a moment. He had heard stories about how Taishan Mansion was one of the biggest challenges around Liyue and Mondstadt, but they didn’t deter him from stepping towards it. After all, this was for Kaeya.
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Never in his life Diluc would have dared to dream of meeting one of the Seven Archons, let alone two. It was true that he had met a lot of people during his long journey through Teyvat, but meeting an Archon? He was close, though, but didn’t really get the chance to. And that’s why his experience with Aether was something precious in his memory, fighting alongside Barbatos to confront Dvalin. It was one in a lifetime experience.
By that time, he didn’t think it was possible to see Kaeya anymore.
Kaeya was dead.
Or that’s what everyone seemed to believe after four years of absence.
They told him, at his return and after having taken over as head of the family winery, that Kaeya wasn’t seen since Diluc’s departure. At first, they thought that Kaeya was trying to accept being left and that he would eventually come around, but days became weeks and weeks became months. Kaeya was nowhere to be found.
Jean mentioned that she personally went to Dawn Winery Manor to ask about Kaeya’s return to the Knights after his extended absence but was informed that no one in the manor had seen him after Diluc’s departure. That was when she noticed something was off and requested Grand Master Varka’s permission to set up an expedition in search of the young knight.
After months of searching through Mondstadt and even Liyue, the Knights of Favonius were forced to assume the worst.
A mourning period was established in Mondstadt after half a year of his disappearance.
Diluc didn’t know how he was supposed to feel at the time. If the information was proved to be true, then he might have had something to do with Kaeya’s death. After all, wasn’t their last encounter the day they clashed swords resulting in Kaeya receiving his vision, but left deathly wounded by Diluc’s own?
That’s why he spent a couple of months reaching out to his informants for help to know if someone outside Mondstadt has seen a man resembling Kaeya.
The answer was none.
All the possible matches were men vaguely sharing a certain characteristic of his late brother, but none were really him. And that was when Diluc truly resigned himself to believe it. He grieved on his own, hidden in his room at the manor, looking every day at the ugly vase Kaeya somehow left for him before he...
Even thinking about it or saying it out loud left him speechless.
How did Kaeya manage to leave that ugly thing without no one noticing? And that note... that note with Kaeya’s handwriting. Did he really mean it to be a goodbye note?
But then, after meeting Aether and fighting alongside him, Jean and Barbatos, Diluc decided to take a break from hero-ing and partake in the famous Lantern Rite Festival from Liyue.
Once they were in Liyue Harbor, Diluc thought it was a great opportunity to try and negotiate a chance to get a place in where he could sell his wine at the next year’s festival, to let all visitors from outside Liyue get a variety of tastes in alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks from Mondstadt.
“Kaeya! Here, here!”
It was there, in that exact moment when he spotted him.
The happy scream from Paimon and the big smile from Aether astonished him. What were the odds about him finding his supposedly late brother in Liyue, and being an acquaintance of the Traveler? And even more, to see him smile from ear to ear by the sight of his blond companion.
“Kae...ya?” He asked, voice trembling and quiet. But even among all the noise of the festival and the general agglomeration, Kaeya heard him.
“Yes, do I know you?”