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He never really did think that she was a coward.
If anything, she was always so brave . So headstrong, so stubborn. She liked to give things a chance—many chances, even. She could smile through both pain and laughter like it was nothing, like it was second nature. She accepted challenges with a determined face, kept fighting through tears and cuts and bruises.
She laughed as she got hurt. She accepted the wounds alongside the comedy. Felt both rain and shine, allowed both a hit and a hug.
She felt everything. Never rejected anything.
She was wise for that. She knew when she lost. She knew when to accept defeat.
She knew she couldn't win against him.
Diluc stares at the palms of his hands and the way they tingle with nerves despite staying completely still. He's been gazing at his clammy skin for what seems like hours—blinking and sitting and saying absolutely nothing as he just looks on in desolate silence. Something tells him he should be holding a weapon. It whispers the image into his ear: A greatsword with a heavy blade and a handle wrapped in leather so worn and burnt that it is molded into the shape of his hands. Instead, however, he finds himself imagining a gentle lavender rose, fanned out with care, its thorns clipped and stem trimmed for both maximum beauty and longevity.
And it's half-burnt to ashes. Half- heartbroken , colorless and charred into an irredeemable gray-black. Half- bloomed , with gorgeously soft petals he longed to caress.
Regardless of that, his palms are empty. And regardless of that , he continues to stare. He can't stop staring.
He just can't.
These very hands made his truest, worst fears come true.
For a moment, he wonders what would've happened if he'd just stopped. If he realized what he was doing sooner. If he only begged her to stay.
She wouldn't have. She wouldn't have been able to. Those tickets and classes were paid for, her itinerary was set. She had family and new horizons and an excitement for the unknown that he never failed to recognize.
But maybe, instead of remembering the heartbreak he'd brought upon himself, he'd be holding his phone in his hands, video calling her, and saying, with no shame, I miss you.
Maybe she'd say back, I miss you, too.
He'd reply, I want you here.
I'll be back in the States soon, she'd chuckle, reassuring him that all he needed to do was wait for her.
He'd beg, gently, impatiently, I want you home .
Diluc swallows down the tightness in his throat and leans back in his seat on the couch, eyelids sliding shut as his body slackens with exhaustion.
I'm sorry.
If only he'd said it at the airport. At her side. At the fight.
She'd forgive him so easily. She hates holding grudges. She'd murmur, through scorching tears and glistening cheeks, It's okay. He could almost see her wiping her eyes stubbornly, keeping her beautiful silver eyes downcast to convince herself to stop crying.
But he wouldn't let that suffice. He'd insist, It's not! It is not okay that I hurt you, that I broke your heart, that I didn't choose you—because it was only ever supposed to be you and yet I ignored you. He'd take her face into his palms, cradling her soft jaw in his hands, and he'd whisper with a plea so haggard and raw: Let me have you, when you come home to me. Let me treat you right.
So low-effort, so satisfied with the bare minimum, she would nestle her face within his touch— You already do.
His hands twitch emptily in his lap. Always so forgiving. Always so loyal.
Always so happy to love.
If only he'd faced himself sooner. Faced his feelings, faced his doubts, faced the affection he so desperately tried to ignore. He remembers the way his heart sank when she first left him alone with Donna, wondering why she was in such a rush to leave.
Now he knows. And she made that choice for all of them. Because she didn't think he loved her.
Diluc's hands clench into weak, guilty fists. He did love her, he does love her, he will always love her—to hell and back—and yet he did nothing about it. So now he's here at home with nobody, wondering If only, if only, if only.
If only…
If only he'd said I love you.
That is a phrase he can no longer picture a reaction to. Would her face be slack, blank with shock and fear as she wondered if those words were some kind of practical joke? Would she cry in joy and wrap her arms around his neck, returning his affection tenfold?
Would she kiss him? Soft, slow, sensual , with hands tangled in his bright red hair and a smile he could feel on her lips? Would it be bliss? Would it be freely given?
It is surprisingly difficult to imagine her saying the words, I love you, too.
Well… to him .
He knows she'd said it before. She constantly reminds her friends she loves them—never pulling the I love you more card, always glowing whenever she says I love you back instead.
Love you back, dumb bitch, to Kaeya, with fake begrudging and the most honest of grins.
Love you baaaaaaack, to Albedo, who doesn't even really say it in the first place, but she says it anyway because she knows.
D'awwwww, I love you back, Baby Klee! to Albedo's little sister, doting and enthusiastic and gorgeously considerate.
The one person she hasn't said it to was Diluc.
He groans to himself.
Of course. He should've asked about that, huh? Maybe he could've gotten an answer out of her that way, instead of trying so hard to pressure her into explaining herself in the few weeks before she boarded the plane.
He wonders how that would've gone—
Why don't you say it to me?
What do you mean?
"I love you." You've said it to everyone else. Why not me?
—and he beats himself up for being so stupid. What the hell is he doing, hung up on chances that have passed and tearing himself apart over a girl? That's all she is: A girl who is his brother's friend, a girl who he would eventually lose touch with, a girl who would become an item of the past—
Diluc slaps his hands to his face and drags them down, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly that he might go blind.
The girl from Stats class.
The girl who got to know him.
The girl who cared more about the fiery heart of a secret romantic than the cold exterior of a billionaire's son.
What would've your dad thought of me? she asked once, when staring at the iconic photo of the snow day above the fireplace. It had always been her favorite photo of the Ragnvindr family—and of Crepus and Nova in general, from what the brothers showed her.
Genuinely, Diluc responded, I think he would've liked you. And maybe he would've liked that I finally made a friend outside the socialite circle.
They laughed at it then, but now he's thinking that Crepus really would have liked that, were he still alive. That man, the ever romantic, would've blown a fuse upon finding out that his son lost such a wonderful girl. Diluc almost laughs to himself about it; and he would've, if he weren't so angry at the moment.
"Earth to Diluc?"
Kaeya's voice, soft and cool as always, drifts into his ears.
Diluc peeks through his fingers at his annoying brother. Dressed in a navy blue hoodie, his hair only half-tied (perhaps courtesy of Albedo), Kaeya stands just off to the side of the couch, a thin eyebrow raised at the sight before him. His blue eyes glisten with curiosity, even though he must already be knowing exactly what is going on through Diluc's mind. He frowns further upon the growl aimed at his stupid, calm face.
"What, Kaeya?"
"Are you serious?" There it is again—that stupid fucking phrase he's been saying ever since Diluc finally realized what had happened. "You have to move on."
" Move on? " he mutters back, letting his hands drop to his lap and his head loll against the warm back cushions of the couch.
"You can't be upset over her forever."
"I can feel however I like."
"Look, dear brother, as much as I like to torture you with the shadows of your mistakes—this has gone on for a lot longer than any of us anticipated! You don't get to sit here and wallow in your sorrows. She's moved on. She's gotten busy. You should, too."
"It is not just about her! It's about what I did. I put that nail in the coffin, I brushed off her affection, I chose someone else over her— I am the fool here, Kaeya, and I can't live with it!"
And Kaeya sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "You're going to have to! It's not like she thinks any less of you for the shitshow that happened before she left!"
"And how do you know that?!"
Kaeya freezes, his mouth clamping shut. Speechless, and a little disturbed, the brothers stare at each other, the question lingering in the air between them. Is that genuine fear in his eyes?
Diluc's heart begins to pound. He sits up straighter, already-furrowed brows tightening painfully. "What? What is it?" he asks, quieter and hushed.
Kaeya sighs again, his hands placing themselves on his hips, and he begins to shift his weight, shaking his head. "Look, I know she won't hate me for telling you, because she's never minded being an open book," he mumbles, staring at the floor, "but I don't know if you're gonna be prepared for the shit I'm about to say."
"Just fucking tell me. Now , before I lose my mind."
Kaeya sits at his side, avoiding Diluc's eyes, and remains that way for another second before saying, "She… She had a panic attack that night, Diluc. The night you guys fought, she had a panic attack just out on the street."
And something in his chest dies. It fizzles out and leaves behind only the faintest plume of smoke, drowning his heart in cold darkness. "... What?"
His brother's tanned hands, a deep golden brown underneath the lights of the living room, spread out and move as he explains. "She was… She was just panicking . I don't know how else to explain it.
"She was sobbing . Lost in her head, but somehow trying to pull herself together. And so obviously fighting herself—I am actually still so appalled at how well she composed herself before she ran out the door. If I weren't there, she would've driven home in a state like that and fuck , God knows what would've happened if she kept spiraling out on the road. I don't know what we would've done if we lost her like that. I never… I have never seen her cry like that, Diluc. She… She—"
Kaeya's voice breaks and he falls back, closing his eyes.
"... I did that to her?" Diluc breathes, watching the way his brother shakes his head as soon as he asks the question.
"In my opinion? Yeah, you fucking did."
" In your opinion? "
"Because she never fucking blamed you." Kaeya's head lolls in his direction, face scrunched up in disbelief and pain. "She kept—She constantly reaffirmed, in the tiniest ways possible, that she was at fault, somehow. She always said some kind of little thing, like, I shouldn't have done this , or I shouldn't have done that…
"She couldn't let you take the blame for everything that happened because there was already so much riding on your shoulders. She even blamed herself for just having anxiety. And… Fuck it, yeah, she's not without mistakes, either, because she self-sabotaged like I'd never seen anyone else do before—but she felt like she had to do something before the both of you got pulled into a world neither of you could handle. She hated herself for falling in love with you because she knew it just wouldn't work ."
"How would she know if she never took a chance? She's always been the one to preach that, so why couldn't she just—? Why didn't she—?"
" Right?! Fuck, she's so brave just until it comes down to romance, and then suddenly she's scared of it all!"
The brothers smile at each other for the first time in months, exasperated.
A beat. Then, Diluc says, also slumping against the cushions, "But… I do get it. You were right, you know, when you said that I knew she harbored feelings for me. I just… I thought she was just another one of those fangirls that liked the thought of me.
"The way she glanced at me, the way she smiled at me— I know those looks , Kaeya, because every girl who recognizes me has them, but then she started going out of her way to be there for me and… I… Kaeya, do you know how guilty I feel, knowing she tried to treat me like a friend and not a celebrity crush, and yet I didn't give her the time of day?"
Diluc glances back down at his hands. "I burned her, Kaeya. Not just with what I did—I dashed every of her hopes with my status, my image, my name , and it never occurred to me that she already looked past all of that. That she didn't really care."
"She really did." At Diluc's questioning glance, Kaeya nods and repeats, "She did.
"She cared because you cared. The reasoning was sound, and the environment was already harsh—she knew you wouldn't recover if any of Dad's partners saw you with some art kid instead of one of theirs . And if it weren't for Dad and the precedent he set with Mom, we would be waist-deep in some shit that would've kept us from people like her and Albedo. She respected that so fucking much, and you're the firstborn, or at least the more responsible one out of the two of us, so she couldn't possibly ruin your future. That's why… Well, you already know about Donna, but that is why she set you two up, Diluc. She just knew. And she cared."
"... And she blames herself?"
"She did. She hated every single thing she did, but she loved you , and she'd rather you be happy than make a mistake you'd regret. Then you had that fight, and she was inconsolable, and she despised herself for making the choice that led to you becoming friends—"
"The coffee date. With you and Albedo." The taste of her favorite horchata-flavored latte, a mixture of cinnamon and rice and milk and coffee, washes over his tongue—a memory as clear as day. "She regrets that?"
"No, not regret , not completely. But she wished sometimes that you two weren't such close friends, that you were only classmates and nothing more, so that it would've been easier to live around you. And… Diluc, if I'm being honest, that fucking hurt me. Hurt us all ."
"Hurt you?"
"Because you both deserve each other," Kaeya sighs, tilting his face up, "and I so badly wanted you to look at her one day and realize that you were just as in love with her as she was with you. You always insisted that you didn't fall in love with her, but holy shit , Diluc, you are bad at lying! Everyone could see it from the other side of the fucking world! Buying her a pendant with small gemstones because you remembered she doesn't like flashy shit, and then giving it to her on her birthday? At least she could face her emotions and live with them, but goddamn , Diluc, you are so insufferable for not even validating your own feelings!"
Diluc remembers the exact pendant. A bloomed rose bud, with beautiful tiny diamonds on either side of the centerpiece. It was attached to a thin silver chain, and was the perfect length for the charm to sit directly atop her sternum.
What the — I—okay, I can't possibly accept this—
It's your birthday. And I promise you, it's not as expensive as anything else I could've gotten you.
What the fuck do you mean by "anything else?!" How fucking much was this?
Easily about… maybe seven hundred?
WHAT?!
He recalls that it was one of her favorite things to wear. Initially, she'd been scared to put on what she considered an expensive item. But shortly after that, she wore it for months.
"I wish Dad were here," he whispers, smiling when the beloved image of her bashful, terrified expression drifts into his memory. "What would he think of me now?"
"Why say that all of a sudden?"
"You don't remember? When it was Mother's Day and we were setting up for dinner to surprise Mom once she got home, and he said—"
"Oh! Boys, if you don't treat your special someone like they're the most precious thing in the world, then don't hold anything precious at all. That thing?"
"Yeah. I just… I always wanted to treat someone the way Dad treated Mom. When I saw how she smiled at him when she looked at the dinner table, I thought, I want to make my wife smile at me like that when I'm older. I just—I want his advice, Kaeya. I broke the heart of a person who was so, so precious to me, and I bet, if he were still alive, he'd probably murder me on the spot."
"But he would give you some kind advice."
"Yeah, he would." Another pause, then, weakly, Diluc breathes, "I miss her."
"... I know," Kaeya murmurs back. "I do, too."
"... She wasn't scared of it. The romance, I mean. I don't think she was ever afraid of it at all."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because she chose to stay with me until the end," Diluc says, smiling to himself in a manner so utterly forlorn that he can't even recognize his own voice as it speaks. He sounds so desolate, so empty . "She stayed and stayed and stayed and only left when she thought she lost."
"Well, she did lose you, in a sense." Kaeya shrugs and shimmies in his seat. "You were buried underneath so much news and celebrity gossip that she felt like she couldn't speak to you."
"That's why she distanced herself?"
"Part of it, yeah. The other part is that she didn't want to fight you on your choice. She fights people a lot, myself included, but she could never point a finger at you, not unless you committed a serious crime. She just couldn't do that. She didn't want to be controlling or crazy—said that whenever she tried to keep someone, she ended up ruining it anyway, regardless of the type of relationship, so… she just shut up and didn't talk about it.
"I told her, You fucking idiot, you can't just preach communication and then make it backfire on yourself. She said back, It's not even on purpose. I know I'm unbearable and things like that just prove me right. And that…"
Kaeya runs a hand down his face tiredly, not unlike how Diluc just did the same a few minutes earlier. "That was infuriating , first off, but she was also stupidly correct—and I fucking hate saying that, but it's true. She couldn't bring herself to test your patience. She'd tested the patience of too many others; to add you to that list might've broken her."
Pure silence. Diluc lets the information sink in, feeling the rift in his heart split further ever so slowly as he pictured her tears, her watercolor eyes, her failing footsteps as she limped out the door. "I would've, huh?"
"Brother, you have no fucking idea."
"How do you even know all this, anyway?" Diluc mumbles, cocking his head curiously. "It's like you can recall her words with perfect memory."
At that, Kaeya pauses, as if debating on whether to tell the truth or not—but the internal battle is gone as fast as it had appeared, and he pulls out his phone from his back pocket, smiling sheepishly as he confesses, "I did memorize them. It's hard not to when she's better at putting words on paper instead of her tongue."
"And you memorized them… Why?"
"Are you jealous?"
"What if I say that I am?"
Kaeya's lip quirks up into an amused half-smile. "Well, what if I say that I've always wanted a sister?"
Diluc's eyes widen drastically and his mouth gapes helplessly, his cold cheeks suddenly flushing to the temperature of a high fever in mere seconds. "I— I'm sorry? "
"That's how badly I rooted for you both. You two aren't the only ones with regrets in this mess, you know. I've always wondered when someone would catch your eye and then you two would hit it off—and then I'd finally have another person around to make fun of you with. I dream of the day I get to make a speech on your wedding day and I poke fun at you and your spouse and embarrass you in front of a crowd—but then all of this happened, and now I don't even know if the husband I'll eventually make fun of will even be you at all.
"I keep wondering what could've gone differently. Maybe I should've been meaner to Donna so that she'd fuck off, or I should've pressured you into spending more time with the actual love of your life. I promised Dad that I wouldn't allow you to make any stupid decisions at all, that I'd make sure what's left of our family is happy in the end, and now here I am, watching you cry over a girl who cried over you —and I can do nothing but just endlessly bully you about it. I'm a fucking terrible brother—"
"Do not say that," Diluc begs, a hand darting out to grasp Kaeya by the bicep. "Don't do that to yourself."
"I tried for you both, man, I really did. She just knows what she wants better than you do, and what she wanted was for you to be happy . Even if that was… without her. And I couldn't stop that."
Kaeya quietly offers up the little screen, open to a messaging app with the contact name Artistic Mess splayed across the top banner. "I've reread our conversations so much between classes and work that I just can't help but memorize them."
Reverently, Diluc takes the phone, reading the very last text she'd sent Kaeya on the night she left— at least say goodbye to me? i don't care if he's not there. you and your boyfriend are like my brothers —and he finds himself hiccuping as tears well in his eyes.
He hasn't cried so painfully since he was a child.
"You sure I can read these?" he breathes.
"So that you know what's going on in her head. I know her well enough to realize that she'd be glad I showed you this. And someday, she'll tell you on your own—but for now, if this is gonna help you get a move on, then this is probably the best you'll get." Kaeya brings in Diluc for a gentle hug, holding his brother's head into his shoulder, and he says, softly, "You could always have a second chance with her, 'Luc. You know that, right?"
Diluc sniffles shakily. "What if it never happens?"
"Then I'll make it happen, damn it. I'm tired of seeing you treat yourself like shit. You may be growing into the functioning businessman Dad always wanted you to be, but you're not taking care of yourself emotionally, and we only have each other, don't we? So if you're gonna cry about your girl, do it now, or else you're going to make your own head explode and I will laugh at the sight."
Despite the sarcastic imagery, Kaeya holds Diluc tighter. "Now fucking read what she had to say, you dumb motherfucker, or you're not going to open up a second chance for yourself at all."
Diluc pretends not to feel Kaeya's hoodie grow wet with the tears seeping from his eyes. "In a moment. Just… Just let me cry over a girl for the first time in my life."
Kaeya's hand rubs his shoulder—the same way Crepus used to do for them. "First time? That's a little morbidly sweet. Kinda disappointed that she's not your first time in bed, though."
"... Shut up."
"No."
"I hate you."
"I love you, too, brother," Kaeya chuckles, resting his chin on Diluc's head. "Let's get you your wife back, alright?"
"I said shut up."
"Nah."