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“Ugh . . .” Kaeya groans at the sight of the unappetizing sludge that the Knights of Favonius’s mess hall calls stew. Then he glances at Diluc conspiratorially. “Hey, what say we sneak out and get some real food. I want Pile ‘Em Ups.”
Diluc gives him a tolerant smile, but like a responsible older brother he reminds him, “We’re on duty, Kaeya.”
“But it’s our dinner break.”
“Our paid dinner break. Being taken while on duty. We have to stay here.”
Kaeya gives a few wordless grumbles, but they’re good natured. He knew even before he suggested it that Diluc would never go for it. Diluc didn’t get to be the youngest captain in the history of the Ordo by slacking off, after all.
“Don’t pout,” Diluc says before Kaeya can grumble too much. “I’ll make you one of my special Pile ‘Em Ups soon.”
“Oh? How soon?”
“Hmm. Maybe for your birthday,” Diluc teases.
“That’s over half a year away!”
“Well then, maybe for my birthday.”
“I’m on patrols all that week,” Kaeya groans. “Someone has to pick up the slack while you’re enjoying your time off.”
“Well. I guess it will have to be for your birthday then after all.”
“Hey!”
Of course, that never happens. Because on Diluc’s eighteenth birthday everything falls apart. And Kaeya spends his next few birthdays alone.
When Diluc returns things are . . . tense. There’s a distance between him and Kaeya that was never there before. Kaeya expected no less.
Hell, Kaeya half expected him to reveal to the Ordo that they had a spy within their midst on his way out. He’s less worried about that when Diluc gets back. If Diluc was going to do that, he would have done it back then. Kaeya’s not sure why he didn’t. He has a few good guesses, but once he would have known.
Well, there’s one thing that Kaeya does know. Despite what happened the night Crepus died, they’re both still on the same side. This is affirmed through several late night skirmishes in the streets where the brothers wordlessly – and coincidentally – end up teaming up, the assassination of a merchant who’s in bed with the Fatui, and who not so subtly threatened to have Kaeya killed, and the time Diluc turns up in the middle of the night at Kaeya’s house in need of some kitchen table surgery, a change of clothes, and a safe place to rest until he recovers from blood loss.
It isn’t until after the Black Fire Incident, however, that they actually start taking steps to repair their relationship – actually start talking again, though when they do it’s not exactly friendly. Diluc is cold in a way he never was before. Kaeya’s grown sarcastic and guarded. The effortless trust that was once between them is gone, maybe never to return. But they try.
After the way things fell apart – and because of the day that they fell apart on – Kaeya doesn’t think that birthdays will be something either of them will be celebrating going forward. He assumes that Diluc would prefer to forget about his birthday. It surely holds too many bad memories now. Kaeya pretty much feels like he should forgo any sort of celebration of his own birthday now as well. Not really fair of him to still be happy and able to celebrate something when Diluc can’t, is it?
So, color Kaeya surprised when on his first birthday after the Stormterror Problem is sorted Diluc mentions, in passing on the street, that he hopes Kaeya doesn’t get embarrassingly drunk for his birthday this year.
For the record, Kaeya has never been embarrassingly drunk on his birthday. Namely because the one time he did give into the urge to drink until he couldn’t feel a thing on his birthday, he did it in the privacy of his own home. Had he been drinking in public that day, it would have been embarrassing, though he honestly doesn’t think anyone would have let him drink anywhere near that much. Nonetheless, the point remains, he has never gotten embarrassingly drunk on his birthday.
He does, however, take Diluc’s throwaway comment as an invitation to stop by the Angel’s Share, and even invites the Traveler. Diluc doesn’t say much to him that evening, but he does pick up Kaeya’s tab.
The next year, Jean gives Kaeya the whole day off for his birthday.
That’s about the last thing that he wants. He’d rather work, so he doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to remember how things used to be when Crepus was alive, and he and Diluc were friends.
Spending all day in a tavern is out of the question, so he goes for a walk. He’s out of the city for most of the day. When he passes Diluc on the bridge into Mondstadt that evening, Diluc looks disgruntled. It’s only then that it occurs to Kaeya that maybe Diluc wanted to spend some time with him for his birthday.
He keeps that in mind but when his birthday rolls around again, Diluc is out of Mondstadt. Kaeya tries not to admit that he’s disappointed. He goes to Cat’s Tail instead, and wastes the whole day annoying Diona, playing Genius Invokation, and putting into motion a plan to annoy his brother. Enjoy being a trading card, Darknight Hero.
The year after that, Kaeya doesn’t have the luxury of having his birthday off. There’s trouble up north, near Dornman Port, the whole month that precedes it and for two weeks after. The trip is not a total loss, however – he does manage to find a whole barrel of delectable dandelion wine on his travels, courtesy of one of the taverns in the port.
The next time he goes to Angel’s Share, Diluc slides him a drink before he can order one and gives him an exasperated look along with it. “We’ve got to stop doing this.”
“Doing what, exactly?” Kaeya asks, confused.
“Missing your birthday.”
“Oh.”
“Make sure to be here for it next year,” Diluc tells him.
It’s too far out to make promises, especially with how fast things are changing, and how many problems are arising all across Teyvat, but Kaeya intends to try. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Some disturbing rumors from abroad have Kaeya packing his bags and setting off for Natlan at the end of next summer. It’s a long haul, but Kaeya doesn’t think when he leaves that he’ll be gone all autumn. Things in Natlan, however, are worse than he realized, and getting worse by the day.
Kaeya doesn’t understand the Abyss – what it is or how it’s powered. Nor does he understand how he’s connected to it – if the Abyss Order is allied with the actual Abyss or just using its powers, what it means that he has the surname Alberich, how his father fits into all of this, or how he, Kaeya, even exists, considering the curse that was supposed to fall upon all Khaenri’ahns. He does his best to look for answers, but his time there grows short. Varka’s Expedition is nowhere to be found, and though he stays as long as he can find excuses to, Kaeya eventually leaves without answers.
He hasn’t been gone for a full day when everything goes south – something happens in Natlan that even after it’s all over still can’t be explained by those who saw it. Kaeya himself does not see it. He sees unnatural dark skies all the way from the jungle of Sumeru though, and crackling golden flames as he retraces his footsteps back through the desert, rushing there with Cyno, who he knows decently well, and Alhaitham and Hat Guy who he does not. They pick up Candace, Dehya, and a guy named Sethos along the way, but by the time they get there it’s all over except a bit of mopping up. And, of course, clean up.
There are wounded who need tending and bodies to bury. There are people who have lost their homes and opportunistic human vultures poised to swoop in. Suddenly everything is in short supply – especially medicine, bandages, and food. Kaeya can’t just leave them. He can’t.
So, he doesn’t. Nor does the Sumeru crew. He spends a whole day digging graves with Alhaitham. Then, that evening he works with Sethos for hours, pitching tents for those whose homes were destroyed so they have some sort of shelter, at least. He falls asleep under the stars, near their group’s campfire while Cyno stands guard, then wakes the next morning, muscles stiff and burning, to do it all over again.
They focus their efforts in the territory controlled by the Children of Echoes tribe, for the most part. Hat Guy and Dehya head further in to check out the situation with the Scions of the Canopy. They come back with reports that the Traveler and Paimon are here, and were in the thick of things while the fighting was going on, but Kaeya doesn’t actually run into them in the full two extra weeks that he stays in Natlan.
He finally leaves when it seems like his continued presence is becoming less helpful and more of a burden – when there’s no more physical labor he can do to lend a hand, and the game animals in the area have thinned out because there are too many mouths to feed. Most of the Sumeru crew heads out then too, with the exceptions of Hat Guy, who continues to make himself useful by flying messages to and fro (and gathering information to pass on to the Dendro Archon while he’s at it, unless Kaeya misses his guess), and Sethos, who is a good enough hunter that his efforts are still useful.
Back in Sumeru City, Kaeya allows himself one night to decompress from all the death and back breaking labor, and he does so by getting rip roaring drunk with Dehya, while Alhaitham supervises just enough to make sure they don’t get alcohol poisoning or arrested. The next day he gets back on the road, hung over, with a splitting headache, and feeling a far cry better than he has since he went back to help Natlan.
It’s a tall order to make it back to Mondstadt by the end of November. Kaeya sets a grueling pace and pushes himself every day, but still isn’t sure that he’ll manage it until he passes through Stone Gate, just after sunset on the evening of November 30th. Even then, he only manages to make it to the city before midnight because he stops at Dawn Winery and borrows a horse. It’s not quite closing time when he stumbles through the door, but it’s close. He braces himself for Diluc’s scowl . . . but is instead met by a warm, if somber gaze as Diluc takes in the sight of him.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Kaeya says, then realizes how unconvincing it sounds. “Yes. I’m okay. Things in Natlan got bad. I don’t know if you heard . . . ?”
“There have been rumors.”
“I’d left before the big fight started. But I went back to help. There was a lot to do after, and . . .” Kaeya trails off. He doesn’t want to talk about what came after. He’ll have to soon enough – Jean will need a report, and Diluc should also be informed, beings as Kaeya’s been keeping him apprised of all things Abyss or Abyss Order related since learning the significance of his surname – but right now Kaeya just wants to put it out of his mind for a little longer and rest.
He startles slightly as Diluc’s hand clamps down on his shoulder, then gently guides him toward a table, to sit. “I’m glad you made it home.”
“It’s good to be home.”
Honestly, the last thing Kaeya feels like doing right now is celebrating his birthday. Celebrating anything, really. But Diluc’s put effort into this and clearly had faith in him making it back tonight. He made his special Pile ‘Em Ups for them to eat, and even pours himself a mug of ale as he sits down with Kaeya, because he knows Kaeya’s feelings about drinking alone. So, Kaeya figures that if Diluc can do all this for him, then he can pretend to enjoy it, so that Diluc will know that it’s appreciated.
A funny thing happens though, as he sits there with his brother, making idle conversation, and pretending to be happy. He actually begins to feel happy. It’s like a weight’s been lifted from his shoulders, and the darkness plaguing his recent memories can’t help but retreat from the warmth of the Angel Share’s lights. Come to think of it, it’s not the first time that Kaeya actually became something he was pretending to be.
He finds himself telling Diluc about the better parts of his trip – mostly the friends he made, though he leaves out the events that forged the bonds between them. His failure to learn anything relevant about the Abyss and the grisly details of what he helped out with after the battle . . . those can wait until he debriefs with Jean. He’ll make sure Diluc is there, so he only has to go over it once. Tonight though, he just focuses on the pleasant things.
It’s a good night. A good birthday. The best one Kaeya’s had in years. With the best Pile ‘Em Up he’s had in years. No one else makes them quite like Diluc. Not even Adelinde. By the end of it, they’re both happily buzzed, even though Diluc only drank about half of his mug of ale.
“We need . . . to do this again next year,” Diluc tells him as Kaeya stands to leave. “Don’t . . . don’t avoid me on your birthday.”
“Okay. I won’t,” Kaeya promises. “As long as we’re both in Mondstadt, I’ll come spend it with you.”
“And I’ll make Pile ‘Em Ups again. Like I said I would.”
It takes Kaeya a moment to remember – that conversation from years ago. When he does, he can’t help but laugh. “I had forgotten about that.”
“I hadn’t,” Diluc says. “I’ve been waiting.”
“Well. No one can say that you’re not a man of your word.”
The multiple negatives confuse Diluc, in no small part thanks to the alcohol. He scowls as he puzzles out Kaeya’s meaning, then finally nods, satisfied that he’s not being insulted. “We’ll do this again next year,” he says with finality.
“Yes,” Kaeya agrees, because he sees that it’s pointless to do otherwise – and because he fully intends to do all he can to make his next words true.
And because he really does want to do this again next year. Or if not next year, then the year after. Or the year after that. Whenever fate and circumstances allow.
It’s impossible to say what the future holds – and after witnessing the aftermath of what happened in Natlan, Kaeya knows that to be optimistic right now is to be naïve. Something is coming for them all. Kaeya may be called up to join Varka’s expedition, to meet whatever is coming head on. Or Mondstadt may find itself facing an invasion. But whatever happens, as long as they survive, they can make up for lost celebrations.
“We will do this again.”