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Kaeya learned touch is transactional early.
Not all at once, not dramatically, but in pieces.
The first lesson is warmth.
A hand on his shoulder when he performs well. Fingers ruffling his hair when he repeats the right words. Physical closeness offered after obedience, never before.
He learns - touch is a reward.
The second lesson is guidance.
A palm at his back, steering him where to stand. A grip on his arm, firm but not painful, holding him in place while instructions are given quietly and precisely.
He learns - touch is direction.
The third lesson is withdrawal.
Touch disappears when he hesitates, when he asks the wrong question. When he shows too much of himself.
He learns - touch is conditional.
By the time Kaeya reached Mondstadt, the lesson was embedded deeply enough that he didn't notice it anymore. He uses touch fluently.
A hand on someone’s arm to charm them, a brush of fingers to disarm suspicion. An easy drape of an arm around a shoulder that says you and I are on the same side.
But he never lets it linger. Never lets himself be the one held.
Because touch, to him, is a contract. And contracts always come due.
Kaeya sits in the quiet of the winery, hands idle on his knees, and remembers.
He remembers the weight of young Diluc leaning into him, not needing words. Little hands brushing his hair back when he’d woken crying from a nightmare, small arms wrapping around him in trust, the way Diluc had tried - innocent, uncalculating - to comfort him. For a fleeting moment, Kaeya had almost believed that touch could mean nothing more than care. That maybe not everything in the world demanded a price.
Then came Ursa, the fight that tore words and trust alike from their mouths. Then years of absence, of distance, of survival at all costs.
And now… now he watches the same hands that once reached freely shrink back at the thought of contact. Touch has a price, and Diluc has learned it too well. Now, when Diluc sits across from him, avoiding even a glance that might invite contact, the memory hurts like twisting a knife. Diluc doesn’t just recoil from him - he recoils from the world, from any touch that could carry cost.
Every flinch, every withdrawal, every measured inch of space isn’t just avoidance. It’s a lesson taught by a world that measured worth in obedience and performance, that had to teach Diluc that touch is transactional. That care always comes with a tally.
Kaeya hates it. Hates it more than he can speak. Hates that the world taught him too, that he knew too much even as a child while Diluc was innocent. Hates the lessons the world forced into Diluc’s hands, and hates that now, years later, those hands, which once gave comfort so freely, tremble at the thought of giving it again.
And yet… Diluc is still here. Still chooses to return to him, in small ways. Not to be held, not to be comforted, but sometimes, just sometimes, to be near.
That hurts too, but differently. It’s the weight of what was stolen and what survived anyway. And Kaeya, he has to sit with that without breaking.
Because he can’t undo the lesson. He can’t erase the transactionality the world forced on Diluc. But he can try to teach something different. Even if it’s painfully slow. And Kaeya does try to show that it doesn’t have to be transactional, that presence can exist without cost, that touch can be a choice, not a sentence.
Even while he struggles himself. Even while every instinct whispers caution, control, survival. Because if there’s any justice left in this fractured world, it might be in teaching the hands that once trusted him freely that they can do so again - without fear.