Chapter Text
“You’ve got your day off again today?” Rosaria remarks, conversationally almost, though Kaeya’s known her for long enough to know that she doesn’t actually intend to make a long conversation.
“I suppose.” Truth be told, he’d forgotten all about the yearly custom until the Acting Grandmaster had reminded him of it; the nation is at relative peace these days, but with all sorts of unrest stirring in their surrounding regions, he hasn’t had a proper break from work in weeks.
Rosaria nods. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks,” he replies, and then, if only to prolong the conversation a second longer, throws in, “it’s rare to see you outside of the tavern. Or in the city, for that matter.” He’s only joking.
His words are met with a half-snort. “Maybe I just prefer not to hang around the likes of you.” There’s no bite to her response, and Kaeya grins a little wider.
“But speaking of,” Rosaria continues, “what are your plans for the day?”
Kaeya shrugs. He doesn’t really pay any heed to birthdays—that’s a thing of the past now, of older (and well bygone) days spent running round the crystalfly-light of the winery and making wishes on flickering candle flame. He can’t really remember the last time he had properly treated it as something special, though there was one time the Knights of Favonius had thrown a celebration for him. A while back, when he had been relatively newer to the faction, but still a well-treasured memory nonetheless.
“Then the tavern tonight?” Rosaria offers, and Kaeya breaks out into a laugh.
“So much for not wanting to hang around me.”
Rosaria gives him a look like she’s trying to hold back a scathing remark. Kaeya thinks she’s just being nice because it’s his birthday. “I’ll be there,” he says.
“Good.”
The conversation ends there, but Kaeya doesn’t mind.
He supposes it’s been a while since he’s celebrated his birthday.
A quarter past nine. That’s the time that they usually meet, and Rosaria hadn’t told him what time they’d be meeting, so he just assumed.
The outside of the tavern is quieter than normal, but he supposes it isn’t odd. It is a weekday after all, and the city has been sluggish as the cold has begun settling over it in the later months. He’d expected to see at least a couple of familiar faces around, though—but who knows? Maybe Nimrod’s wife had finally found a way to kick his habit once and for all.
He swings the door open, receiving a greeting nod from Charles, to which he responds with a wave. “It’s awfully quiet today,” he says by way of conversation. That’s a nice way of putting it. There’s virtually no one in the tavern save the bartender and himself, the normally-occupied chairs tucked neatly against the tables and glasses lined up in a row behind Charles. Kaeya wonders if some kind of bad news about the winery’s new batch of wine had spread to everyone but him. “Uh—is Rosaria here, by the way?”
“Upstairs,” Charles replies. Kaeya utters his thanks and moves up the stairs, his footsteps surprisingly loud against the sturdy wood.
“You’re finally here?”
Kaeya realises two things (in order): one, that the voice that calls out to him decidedly isn’t Rosaria’s, and two, that there are more than one person sitting on the upper floor of the tavern.
“... Jean?”
“It’s been a while since you’ve celebrated your birthday, hasn’t it?”
He wonders who’s been snitching to her.
“Besides, you’ve spent the past few years working, even though I gave you days off.”
Kaeya raises an eyebrow. “Have you been spying on me?”
The corner of Jean’s lips curl a fraction. “We both know the answer to that.”
And she’s right, Kaeya thinks a little disgruntledly, Jean is a busy woman.
Someone has definitely been snitching on him.
“Thanks for the effort,” he tells Rosaria, dipping his gaze away from Jean’s, “didn’t know you had it in yourself to care that much.”
Rosaria laughs out loud. “Me? Going out of my way to plan a surprise for you? Leave that to your annoying little friend over there.”
Her words are more jest than anything, but Kaeya already knows who she’s referring to before he hears the footsteps on the stairs and the clinking of glassware; yet it does little to stem the odd wave of—surprise? Bittersweetness, almost?—that rushes over him, his eyes widening and then fading into a broadening smile.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he says, and Venti chuckles.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” The bard sets down the drinks, albeit a tad bit clumsily, with Lisa getting up to offer a hand. Even Jean’s drinking today.
What a special occasion.
“You didn’t have to,” Kaeya remarks as Venti hands him his drink, and the bard shoots him a look he can’t decipher.
Venti settles himself in the seat opposite of Kaeya, faint smile playing on his lips. “But I wanted to,” he responds. The golden light overhead flickers across the glass and casts a brief glow over the tabletop, temporary haloes against brushed wood. “You’re one of us after all, aren’t you?”
Kaeya blinks. It’s a strange thought to have, almost.
One of us.
It feels stranger coming from Venti. Not in a bad way—never in a bad way—but in a way that etches itself into a tiny corner of his heart, bittersweet and hesitant and hopeful all at the same time.
Really? he wants to ask, but he bites it back.
“You’re right,” he replies, and he’s glad to hear his signature light-heartedness lacing his words. “Thanks, Venti.”
“Don’t mention it.” Really. Venti raises his glass, eyes crinkling by the corners. “Shall we get started?”
The chime of glasses against glasses, the outpouring of birthday well-wishes, the shimmering reflection of the golden light amidst the tavern haze.
“Happy birthday, Kaeya!”
He hasn’t felt this way in years.
Maybe—just maybe, because he doesn’t want to admit it—he might have drunk too much.
But it’s not his fault, he swears. At some point through the night Charles must have become an even better bartender than he already was (or maybe Kaeya was just too far gone), because every Death After Noon that had been brought up tasted better than the one before. And the others weren’t helping, either—Jean and Lisa were still sober last he checked, but most of the Knights who had attended were long gone after a few too-fast shots, and Venti and Rosaria had taken it upon themselves to turn drinking into a friendly competition. Again. With him included.
No surprises there.
So now his vision’s a little blur—he’s seeing three glasses instead of one, and he can’t really feel his feet—and maybe he’s getting a bit tired (his eyes are closing on their own will), but it’s alright. Nothing he’s never gone through before.
But that’s not what’s important right now.
“I win,” he declares, voice maybe a bit too loud, but it’s okay. They’re in the tavern anyway.
Across the table from him, Venti huffs. “I let you win!”
“Sore loser.”
“I’ll have you know that—”
“And on that note,” another voice interrupts, “I think it’s time for you to go home.”
Home.
What an odd word.
“Where’s home?” he asks. The words sit heavy on his tongue, coming out slurred.
Someone’s tapping his shoulder, urging him up. He doesn’t move. “Where’s home?”
“Kaeya.” The voice is gentler now. Jean? “Here, in Mondstadt. It’s time for you to go home.”
Mondstadt.
Home.
“Mondstadt?” he repeats. Across the table from him, Venti has gone quiet, the clouded shade of emerald cleared from his eyes. He doesn’t notice. “Home is so far away from here.”
The tap turns into a gentle push against his shoulder, urging him out of his seat. He gets up, but the floor feels like air beneath him and a step is enough for him to stumble. The lights are brighter than usual today.
Someone catches him, and he inhales the faint scent of dandelions and sea breeze.
… Damn it.
Venti had let him win.
The bard is smaller in stature but surprisingly strong, allowing Kaeya to lean against him for the while that it takes for the world to re-centre itself. “Home in the city, Kaeya,” someone else says. “Near the Knights of Favonius’ headquarters. Remember?”
Kaeya remembers, but he doesn’t know what to say of it.
Four walls. The scent of wood, regularly dusted furniture and carpeted floors. A small chandelier hanging over the dining table, all seats pushed in except for one. One bedroom minimally decorated and the other stripped bare; a frozen silence shrouding the walls and a faint light hanging over the painting Albedo had once gifted him, crystalflies in flight over the blue-tinted glow of Dragonspine.
He doesn’t go home very often.
“I remember,” he replies, then stops.
It’s not always good to remember.
“Come on,” Venti says, “we’re going to walk down the stairs, okay?”
“... Okay.”
Maybe hosting the party on the second floor wasn’t the best idea. For the record, though, Kaeya gets down just fine (Venti is the one who somehow manages to trip over air and fall down the stairs instead), and the two of them—a little clumsily—make their way towards the tavern exit.
“Venti,” he blurts, when they’ve nearly reached the door, “where’s your home?”
For a moment, the bard is silent.
And then he laughs.
“Wherever the people I miss the most are,” he replies, and now it is Kaeya’s turn to fall silent.
He wonders what home feels like to Venti. Belonging? A hole somewhere in the corner of his heart, brushed over with warmth? Grief with no other place to call its own?
Where is home? he wonders again.
And maybe it is all of the above. Maybe it was where he belonged at some time—the time still frozen still in the memory he can’t remove—a hole throbbing somewhere, aching with the bittersweetness of youth and summer warmth—grief finding its place and settling down within four walls and golden chandelier light, waiting to be cleaned away like dust from old storybooks and cobwebs in a room stripped bare.
He only realises he’d said it aloud when Venti speaks up again. This time his voice is quieter, more sombre. Or maybe Kaeya’s just imagining things.
“You already know where home is, Kaeya,” Venti murmurs, so quiet now, like he’s trading some sort of secret. “Don’t you?”
He does.
“I do,” he says, and it feels like the alcohol had all coagulated into a lump against the back of his throat, scouring. His lungs feel like they could conflagrate at any second.
Venti smiles. The light in his eyes has taken on a dim, sad glow, and he casts his gaze out beyond the Knight to where used glasses sit along the bartender counter. Kaeya doesn’t notice. “I wish I could go home, too,” Venti remarks, and Kaeya’s back straightens a fraction as if Venti had just said something he’d been waiting to hear. “But for what it’s worth, this place isn’t bad at all.”
“But it’s not home,” Kaeya voices, then stops.
It should be.
Venti’s arm tightens around his shoulder just the slightest. “In time,” Venti tells him, and Kaeya dips his head.
The way Venti says it sounds like a promise, like something bound to happen.
Kaeya doesn’t know if it will. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop wondering—asking—yearning. Home. He doesn’t know if the warmth will ever come and wash away all the grief. He doesn’t know if the memories will ever fade into the past like scars. He doesn’t know if they’ll ever stop bleeding bright red, like open wounds against unmended flesh.
But for what it’s worth, maybe he’ll hold Venti to his word.
Just this one time.
“Okay,” he says finally, hand reaching for the doorknob. It’s cold to the touch, numbing his fingertips. “Let’s go.”
He leaves out the word home.
The smile doesn’t leave Venti’s face, but it morphs into something different—the corners of his lips take on a bitter tint, rounded with the briefest edges of a sweet kind of sadness, like summer haze and sickly thunderstorms. “Let’s go,” he echoes, just as the door swings open.
Venti doesn’t forget to look back one more time as they take a step out of the tavern, eyes reaching beyond Kaeya’s unsteady movements to where the red-haired bartender stands behind the counter, polishing marks off glassware until they’re spotless again.
The Ragnvindr’s gaze follows them until the very last second that the tavern door slams shut.
Golden chandelier light, a wooden table with every chair untouched but one, the gentle blue glow of crystalflies taking flight.
Maybe home is a place where memories are stored like old storybooks and in the furniture hidden away from the rooms stripped bare. And maybe home is grief compartmentalised away into the unopened doors of those rooms and written over by the promise of new beginnings, like glassware wiped clean and vases polished day after day. Or maybe it is a gaping hole melted away—incessantly—with the warmth of new summers and the faded embers of what once was.
But not all ghosts die from fire, and for a moment—just a terrible, disconcerted, and entirely brief moment—Diluc lets himself remember.
Where is home?
The place that was once theirs.