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The door to Jean’s office swings open with a creak, and Kaeya saunters in, a thick folder tucked under one arm. His usual smirk on his lips as he steps inside without a second thought. “Jean, I’ve got that report you were asking f—”
He freezes mid-step, his words dying in his throat.
There, sprawled on the floor in the middle of Jean’s office, is none other than Barbatos. The Barbatos.
The one that nobody has seen for 500 years. That one.
The Anemo Archon is lying flat on his stomach, legs kicking lazily behind him, wings open and resting on the hardwood, surrounded by a sea of scattered crayon drawings. In his hands is a bright red crayon, and he’s focused intently on what seems to be a picture of a giant windmill.
Kaeya’s brain screeches to a halt.
Jean, who had been seated at her desk, bolts upright, her eyes wide with panic. "Kaeya!" she nearly yelps, rushing toward him with surprising speed. "Why didn’t you knock?!"
The shock of seeing Mondstadt’s Archon doodling on the floor still has Kaeya rooted to the spot. His eye darts between Jean and the casually drawing Barbatos as his mind scrambles to make sense of this absurd scene.
Words fail him.
This isn’t… this can’t be real.
Jean reaches him in an instant, grabbing his arm and frantically shoving him toward the door, as if somehow getting him back outside will undo the fact that he’s seen all of this. "Just—just give me a moment," she pleads, her voice strained. “Why didn’t you knock?” She repeats, voice dropping off hopelessly, as if asking enough times will make him go back in time. “Just—go outside,” she presses, clearly flustered. “I’ll pretend this didn’t happen. You’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”
Kaeya, still dumbstruck, allows her to guide him toward the door, his eye not leaving the sight of Barbatos. “I’ll… go back out and knock,” he says dumbly. And then looks away from the Archon on the floor long enough to meet Jean’s eyes, running his mouth off, barely even aware of the words that are leaving his mouth. “So… the Acting Grandmaster’s office is doubling as a daycare now?”
Jean gives him a withering look. Before she can respond, there’s a cheerful voice from the floor.
“Hi, Kaeya!”
Kaeya’s head snaps back toward the source, and he meets the bright green eyes of Venti, who’s sitting up now, still holding his crayon, waving at him with that same familiar stupid grin beaming from that same stupid round face. And Kaeya’s brain—already teetering on the edge of short-circuiting—completely crashes.
“Venti?” he chokes out, his voice strangled.
Jean hurriedly slams the door shut in his face, her hands gripping the doorknob. There’s a tense silence as Kaeya stands there, staring at the now-closed door, trying to reconcile what he’s just witnessed.
After a beat, he raises a hand and knocks on it.
From inside, he hears Jean groan.