Chapter Text
It was that time of the year.
"Well, time does travel fast."
Just like how it is like yesterday when he traveled across Teyvat, murdering every fatui he came across, searching for a way to vent the rest of his anger. After all this time, the blade of his claymore screams more bloodshed.
Pyro visions as himself were dedicated to their passions. And maybe he's too bent up in his own revenge, the most passionate thing he has ever felt in his entire life. Alongside the desire to protect the people Mondstadt while hating the Knights of Favonious with passion.
Was it the wine-making? As a kid, he likes them. The older he gets, he loses interest in it, just like how things just don't stay the same. Maybe, just like the fatui he had slayed, he had killed them along with his feelings.
"Will you join the dance later?" As usual, it was the bard scooting over Rosaria, eyes clearly glazed with too much alcohol. "I am curious to know whose poor soul would you end up with,"
The nun did not reply, finger lightly touching the side of the cup, infusing the alcohol with cryo.
Then there's cryo, the opposing element to pyro, which surprisingly can be powerful if used together.
"You always do that," Venti said palms supporting his jaw and looking in wonder, still There was something obscure in his eyes. "Do cryo holders do such things?"
Now Rosaria is looking, and so is Diluc.
"What makes you assume?"
Venti shrugs, "Captain Kaeya does it."
A whip of cold silence. The nun glanced at the bartender's face, knowing well that he would listen.
"I don't talk for all of cryo vision holders..." Rosaria took a huge gulp of the alcohol as if it was a way to borrow strength from what she said next. "But I like the way it keeps me numb."
The nun did not elaborate. Another silence and Diluc is in too deep, thoughts a static sound of buried memories. Thinking how contrasting it easy to the cold Cavalry Captain he now loathes. It didn't stop the elderly people from favoring him though. There's just something in those lies that they see, things Diluc won't ever see, or refuses to.
"Speaking of the Captain, I heard he went with the Traveller to Dragonspine," Venti said, smoothly changing the subject.
Rosaria nodded going along. "Since when did the Traveller not bring him along?"
"Of course, Lumine always has the softest spot for the Captain."
"Here's a photo."
Out of nowhere, the nun pulled out three pictures, all taken from Lumine's handy camera. Venti takes the picture, mouth forming an 'O'.
In all three pictures, Kaeya was hanging out with girls. Judging from the vision, they're all Pyro users.
"Woah, the Traveller sure knows how to gather people," Venti said still unbelievably looking at the odd team. "Men would be so jealous," Venti said, picking one specific picture. "Just look at this lucky bastard."
Diluc would have squinted at the way Venti uses foul language. If not for the fact that he was more curious at looking over the pictures.
In that specific picture, the Cavalry Captain was sleeping, the girls surrounding the man, also sleeping, vision glowing as if to infuse heat into the Cavalry Captain's cold skin.
Upon looking, Diluc felt something in him shifted. Looking over the next, which isn't any better, Kaeya got his hands being heated up with a girl, and at the back was a snowman. And when he gets to the third picture where they dare feed him a bowl of Radish Veggie Soup, Diluc thinks he'd burn the whole menacing picture out of his sight. He's older, he could control--
"I knew you would do that."
Rosaria and Venti watch as the pictures turn into ashes. Diluc's face were indescribable, bordering between disgust and the desperate attempt to not show it. He failed, truthfully. Still, the two drank at their own alcohol, at the same time, not commenting.
"You always participated when you were teenagers, right?"
He was composing himself, unavailable to speak at the moment, a streak of irritation as he turned back to the task at hand. It was only then he noticed the smoke in his hands, slowly dying down.
"I stopped those childish beliefs a long time ago." Diluc's voice was cold.
Venti pretended to shiver at the side, giggling at his own childishness.
"Ooohhh, Sir Diluc doesn't believe in soulmates."
Crossing his arms, Diluc stared at the bard, too hard at that. Contemplating if the Archon will be a good listener now that he's half-drunk. Still, what is there to listen? What is it he was trying to find an answer to?
He couldn't quite point it out.
"How about you, Sister Rosaria." It was Venti's turn to ask. "Will you participate at the Blind Ball later?"
"You're asking me?" Rosaria blinked in disbelief. "You think I would go?"
Venti shrugs, "You my child can only answer that."
Rosaria did not speak.
Even if he got his back turned to them, Diluc could feel how loudly the nun had pondered the question. Setting the cup down, certain thoughts cross his mind, wandering aimlessly to an image of a boy. The one who gave his heart to, the only one he would entrust his heart to. Still breaking at the truth that he had lost him. For good. And it should stay that way.
"I...want to find a place."
Rosaria broke the silence, as well as the thoughts in Diluc's, quietly scolding himself, The limitless Kaeya faces in his mind sure likes to tease him.
"...a place where I wouldn't have to think." Rosaria looks down, eyes transfixed into a tiny space. "Because I kept thinking the worst. It just feels like dancing is...free."
It wasn't in his intention to remember. Still something in those words seems so familiar that Diluc can't help but to clutch the painful beats of his chest. The rhythm was a brush of beautiful strokes, over a canvas of laughter and dances. The softest memories he had treasured, colored in the same way a sun would shine across the dark sky.
"If you won't be my end partner..." Kaeya had said back then, uncovered eyes glimmering as he guided Diluc over the dancefloor. "...then I will rebel against fate."
Diluc would giggle then, pulling the younger boy closer. "So, I am your ideal soulmate?"
There was a pause. The radiance of his smile had fallen, obscured of any warmth. For a moment, Kaeya was close behind through his tears. And Diluc went soft as the smile on his face returned.
"You make me feel dumb though!"
Diluc gasped sharply, "Are you insulting me?!"
Kaeya knew how terrible he would be in his tantrums. He was always horrible at keeping his emotions. To his complaints, the younger boy only smiled dreamily, hugging the redhead gently.
"Please, don't get the wrong idea, Luc."
That's something he couldn't refuse. It annoys him that all his anger would evaporate with just a simple embrace from the bluenette. He had always hated losing, still, he wouldn't mind giving the victory to him, if it meant that Kaeya would stop showing those expressions.
"I just...forget that I can even think when I am around you." Diluc snorted at that, still embracing the younger tightly. "...I guess your idiocy had rubbed itself on me."
"You've got bad taste," Diluc said with a pout, pulling them away and caressing the bluenette's right cheek until he was leaning into it. "You're also an idiot for choosing an idiot like me."
Kaeya shrugged, "Maybe that's why I believe we were soulmates."
I believed it too.
Diluc couldn't say a word. As the tavern starts to empty, he starts to feel left out, knowing exactly where they will go. When the two drinking buddies bid their farewell, teasing that they would attend the ball, his mind began to race.
Before he could go crazy, Charles's voice rang from behind him, his heart had almost leaped from shock then.
"Y-yes, Charles?"
"I said I'll take over from here."
There was a moment. A moment he desperately needs, as the words finally sink in.
"Why?" Was he could say.
Charles gave him a knowing smile, "I knew you wanted to go. You've always been a helpless, young child, Master Diluc."
Diluc trembled, for speaking the truth or the hope he still held even after these years.
"I-I don't..." Diluc cleared his throat, feeling like a child again. "I am older. That has changed--"
"Some things don't." Charles cut in, smiling gently. "Now, good luck Master Diluc. Please do bring a beautiful bride home."
Charles was already picking up his coat. "Or a handsome Cavalry Captain would be better."
"What the--"
That was all Diluc would get as a form of...encouragement before he was pushed by the back, coat gathered over his arms, still surprised at the turn of events. Before he knew it, he was standing outside, kicked out of his own tavern door like a lost puppy. He wanted to back out, to get into his Darknight hero outfit and hunt down the peasants who would dare end up with the Cavalry Captain--
Diluc paced back and forth, what am I thinking?!
Who would care if Kaeya Alberich would end up with someone other than him?!
Seriously, though, who would want to marry him?!
"They said Kaeya would participate!"
Diluc halted with his incisive pacing, feeling as though he was hit by a thousand rocks. And the ones throwing rocks were walking past him. Ahead of him.
"The Cavalry Captain?! Just wait, I will end up with him!"
"Blasphemy, do you think you can stand side by side with the Captain?!" Another woman had join in. "It will be me!"
"Me!"
Diluc hated losing.
That much hasn't changed. Right now though, he'd have to find out what else hadn't as he sprinted his way towards the Anemo Archon's statue.
"No...
Me..."