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“This doesn’t look like your office,” Lumine said as she came up the stairs to the second floor of the Angel’s Share tavern. She stomped with every step to punctuate her annoyance. She wasn’t sure she could be heard over the din of patrons below, but doing so still made Lumine feel a bit better. In her hand she violently shook a sheet of paper that had been folded in thirds; an invitation scrawled in surprisingly ornate script.
“That's what the quotation marks around the word implied,” Kaeya said looking up from the stack of papers in front of him. He leveled a gaze on Lumine as she approached, hiding a developing smile with a sip from his wine glass. He really was easy on the eyes, Lumine admitted to herself as she crossed the distance to the table. Before she took up the chair across the table from the navy haired captain, Lumine reached for the wine glass still in his hand. Just as the tips of her fingers grazed the stem, he pulled it back playfully. “Hey now, I don’t think you’re old enough to have this,” He teased, not bothering to mask his amusement in the slightest.
“That stopped being funny the first time. If I’m not old enough, none of you are,” Lumine responded as she made a gesture to convey her statement encompassed the whole bar. Her tone was much less amused than his. Kaeya extended the glass towards her and shook it gently from side to side to emphasize he was relenting to her demands. Lumine wasted little time before she snatched the glass of red from his fingers and finished it with a gulp. It wasn’t the dandelion wine he usually drank, instead tart and dry sliding past her tongue.
“You could just explain it to them, and then you wouldn’t have to deprive me.”
“Explain what? That when I told them I was a Traveler from afar, I meant it with a capital T and afar meant not from this world? That wouldn’t complicate my social interactions at all,” Lumine said with a sigh as she sat dropping her weight into the chair with a heavy thud. Almost immediately she folded her arms upon the wooden table and rested her head.
Kaeya placed his elbow on the table and propped his chin up in his hand as he shifted his foot beneath the table to brush his leg against hers. On one level he was toying with her, like a cat entertained by a mouse. On another he was testing how receptive she was to his advances. Lumine admired his audacity, and was grateful for it in the same stroke. They’d been slowly pushing the boundary of their friendship since Amber had introduced them. Lumine had gone out of her way to cross paths with the Captain, and she was sure now that he’d been doing the same.
“But me, you have no trouble coming clean to?” he asked, voice soft and silken
Lumine shifted her head, peeking an eye out at him from over her arm before answering. “You had it mostly figured out already. I just helped with the details a little. Aside from that, you’ve proven to have a healthy relationship with discretion. A bit of valor too from time to time.”
“With flattery like that I’m going to be hard pressed to stay on my best behavior,” Kaeya said. He looked about for a moment before adding, “Which leads to the question of where your little chaperone is tonight?”
“We don’t go everywhere together,” Lumine scoffed. Kaeya said nothing, continuing to look at her with an air of suspicion. After a moment she sighed heavily, “I asked her to find something else to do for tonight.”
“My, my what an interesting development. Why would our Traveler, want to slink off into the night all by her lonesome?”
She responded to his over the top response with a small smirk as she sat up and propped her chin up on her hand mirroring Kaeya’s posture. “Playing coy when you know the answer is a little self-indulgent don’t you think?”
“Just because I know doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear it.”
Lumine sighed and rolled her eyes before mouthing fine at length and meeting his gaze. “It’s my last night in Mondstadt and I wanted to see you before I left. Without supervision. We have unfinished business. Conveniently I found this slipped under my door when I came back from having lunch with Amber. So I didn't even have to make up an excuse.”
Lumine dropped the letter she’d brought with her in front of Kaeya with a flick of her wrist. To his credit, Kaeya knew when a glib remark would ruin a moment or not. He cocked his head thoughtfully, letting the silence emphasize Lumine’s meaning, "While the pleasure of your company was the main purpose of the invitation. I also wanted to run a proposition by you."
From the pile of paperwork Kaeya had in front of him he pulled a sheet of parchment with a seal and a signature at the bottom and held it out for Lumine to see.
"What's this?" She asked, unable to quickly absorb the large block of text into something she could comprehend.
"It's an expedition request, already signed and approved by the Acting Grand Master herself," Kaeya paused, waiting for the information to make connections in Lumine's mind. Her vivid amber eyes widened suddenly.
"Kaeya?" She asked, unwilling to voice her conclusion out loud.
"Lumine, please allow me to join you on your journey," he answered, stopping for a beat before he continued. "Guarding you on your journey sounds far more entertaining than any of the usual Favonius stuff," he answered.
"But what about Mondstadt? You are a Captain. You have responsibilities and whatever," Lumine said, still processing what was happening.
"The Cavalry Captain, all of whom are with Varka on his expedition. I convinced Jean to let traveling with you be my expedition for a bit. Actually it didn’t take that much convincing, Amber isn’t the only one of my colleagues with ruffled feathers over my recent behavior during the defense effort. She seemed a bit relieved at my request actually, I think having me out of sight for a bit sidesteps some potential conflicts she was anticipating."
“You could just explain it to them,” Lumine responded, trying not to crack as she echoed the phrasing he'd used earlier.
Kaeya smiled broadly in response. Lumine could tell by how his bright blue eye danced in the low light that he was also trying not to laugh. Lumine enjoyed this about Kaeya most, he could roll with her banter, teasing and sarcasm. With many of the other Knights of Favonius conversation was straight to the point, and boring. The Traveler and the Cavalry Captain had quickly formed an intimate friendship in no small part because it had been so easy to understand each other.
“Revealing that card from my hand has the potential to backfire. So what do you say? We do make a good team.” Kaeya said without pausing between lines of thought. Lumine knew that him changing the subject so abruptly was a hint that he didn’t really want to delve into it. They were having such a good time Lumine was loath to ruin it by prying into a pandora’s box that wasn't hers in the first place. As a Traveler, she was keeping more than a few secrets close to her chest as well. When she thought the time was right, she might share them with Kaeya, and she was sure the Calvary Captain’s modus operandi was similar.
"If you are sure this is what you want, then I would love some company. We do make a good team, and Paimon isn't exactly good in a fight. It’ll be fun." Lumine stood up, "But before you commit to a long trip to Liyue I want to try something." She held out her hand to him.
"If you want to go somewhere more private you don't have to make an excuse. We're adults after all," he answered as he took her hand and stood from his chair. There was an ever so slight wobble to him as he did so; that hadn’t been his first glass of wine for a certainty. Absorbed in the warmth of his skin and the calluses on his fingers, Lumine was reluctant to let go of his hand. He made no sign of struggle.
“Whisking you away from prying eyes was always part of my five step plan for tonight,” She answered with a whimsical note, “but this is something I wanted to test anyway. We can stop by the Favonius Knight’s actual office beforehand to drop off your paperwork. I’m going to require your undivided attention tonight.”
“So brazen. What will people say if they catch us carrying on like this?” Kaeya teased. He’d teased her countless times. But this time was different. Lumine knew Kaeya, in an intrinsic way similar to how she knew Paimon. While his tone was light and playful, there was an edge to it. Just the smallest hint of vulnerability, a wisp of wanting to let her in through a crack in his cold and carefully calculated veneer. Even still it was a tactically sound gambit. If he didn’t get a satisfying response from her, he could easily laugh it off in jest and continue on like nothing had transpired. But Lumine was just as sure that if she disappointed him here, he might not ever offer himself to her this way again. She would have proven herself unworthy of stepping onto the next rung on his ladder of trust.
“Kaeya,” She started as she took a step towards him and looked up at him. Lumine made sure their eyes met before she continued. “I came tonight because I wanted to get to know the handsome Captain Alberich a bit better. Maybe feel him up a little. I’m not much concerned about what anyone thinks right now besides him.”
He rewarded her with a soft smile, and pulled their hands to his chest, lacing their fingers together as he positioned them over his heart. It was probably the wine going to his head, Lumine tried not to read too much into it. She did, however, let the moment stretch out in silence for a beat. With his free hand Kaeya brushed a thumb across her cheek gently. Lumine was pretty sure this meant she’d passed his impromptu test but was afraid she'd spook him like a stray cat if she dared to move too quickly; physically or metaphorically.
“I think that's the second time today you’ve called me handsome. Not that I mind, mind you, but I’m told I am insufferable when my ego’s been overly inflated,” he answered finally, the lilt of amusement was still in his voice but it was accompanied by a hint of tenderness.
“I’ll let you know when you are being insufferable,” she said with a squeeze of her fingers before pulling herself away from him. “Get your things together. I want to see if with my help you can learn to use a waypoint. That way you can come back to Mondstadt whenever the Knights need you.”
On their way out, Lumine almost asked Kaeya why he’d chosen Angel’s Share to meet and not his usual favorite, the Cat’s Tail. But asking would be self-indulgent if she knew the answer. He’d known she liked it better.