Archive of Our Own

There is a peaceful kind of consistency in the City of Freedom. Every day, at the first break of dawn, Mondstadt’s main square comes alive. Shopkeeps prepare their daily specials, locals travel to work amidst the Knights and their patrols, and the scent of fresh-baked bread fills the air. By a few hours past daybreak, it bustles with activity; children play by the rushing fountain, and the bright sun casts shadows from the windmills spinning overhead.

For Kaeya, Mondstadt is an opportunity to carve a life for himself that he can choose. Over the years he has partaken in local traditions; flower-strewn streets and annual debate, the cheers of a crowd as a Harpastum is thrown into the sky. He has long established his own rituals in the form of weekly meetings with Jean, regular orders from Wagner’s shop, stolen smoke-breaks with Rosaria, and friendly banter at the Angel’s Share.

Kaeya’s meetings with Jean are a standing appointment on the second-last workday of every week. They sit together in one of the empty conference rooms, review any active investigations, and catch up on paperwork over shared stories. They’ve done this for more than a year now, and Kaeya saunters in just shy of late every time, brandishing his reports, a smile, and an always-declined bottle of wine.

But this particular morning, Kaeya’s world starts irregularly. He wakes exhausted and sleep-slow. He moves on auto-pilot, washing his face with barely-open eyes, brushing his teeth while he stretches his back, and fumbling for a clean uniform and eyepatch. The regular sights and sounds of the city feel sharper than usual, the bright sunlight blinding to his tired eye and the food-smells of the market turning his stomach. As he crosses the main square, it all finally culminates in disorientation—a magnificent trip on a jutting flagstone and a hasty shuffle to save himself from falling.

Sara calls out to him with a suppressed chuckle behind her concern. “Oh, dear! Are you alright, Sir Kaeya?”

He waves it off with an easy line. “Clearly in need of another coffee!” She laughs, and he continues on his way, contemplating the quantity of wine he’d drank the night before and the idea of a nap over his lunch break. Porthos waves to him as he ascends the steps of Knight’s HQ, and Kaeya greets him with a smile.

When he finally enters Jean’s office, a whole five minutes past the hour, she’s not there. He pauses mid-step, ducks around the door to peek in the corners, but to no avail. For the first time since they established these meetings, Jean is entirely absent.

Kaeya lingers, drumming his fingers on the desk and shooting glances at the clock as five more minutes pass, then ten, then twenty. It sits uneasy with him—enough of their allotted time has been wasted that they may as well reschedule, and that is entirely out of character for her.

He descends the main staircase with intent to ensure she hasn’t become lost in her work or caught cold again. He prepares what he could say—a joke and offer for a break, perhaps—but stops surprised only a few steps down. There, standing outside her office and having a casual conversation with Noelle as if there is nowhere else for her to be, is Jean.

Kaeya mentally calculates the day of the week. No, it is the right one. He’s sure of it. “Acting Grand Master?” Kaeya asks as he approaches, probing with a carefully mild expression and a tease. “Did our plans change without my knowing? You know it’s hardly nice to leave a man waiting.”

Jean pauses in the middle of a gesture and stares expressionlessly at him before responding. “I don’t believe we were to meet today.” Noelle barely moves, doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even acknowledge his presence, and an uncomfortable shiver works its way along Kaeya’s spine. 

Every week, on the same day, without fail. Kaeya doesn’t let on just how unusual this is. He deflects, as he does best, and removes himself from the situation for later examination. “Ah, it must have been my mistake. Good day.”

He leaves Headquarters to clear his mind. He clenches and unclenches his hands as he gazes up. The sun is bright, the sky is blue. He can smell the fresh scent of clean Mondstadt air. Birds are chirping playfully and flitting about the endlessly spinning windmills. This is his home.

Kaeya walks the walls, watching the movements of the city below and trying to settle the prickle of his intuition. Something more than just his odd morning and missed meeting is nagging at him and leaving him unbalanced, so he seeks out stable, solid ground. He seeks out Rosaria. He finds her smoking behind Mondstadt’s Cathedral, a reassuring, familiar presence, pale and looming amidst the bright spring blooms and stained-glass windows. He plants his back to the cool, shaded stone beside her and gives himself a moment to breathe. There is history between them; they have often taken quiet succor in smoke breaks and dry-humour commentary, standing together just like this.

Usually, Rosaria starts them off. This time, she does not say a word. This time, she leans away from him, takes a step in the other direction, the line of her body betraying a strange... discomfort? Kaeya turns to face her with concern, confusion, and a low-grade apprehension swarming within. When their eyes meet, she stares at him for far too long, then shakes her head and blinks rapidly.

“Oh, Sir Knight,” she says, as if surprised. He cannot recall the last time she called him by title, treated him with such distant formality. “I didn’t recognise you.”

His smile is brittle-bright. It feels like a crack in his face. He nods, clenches his jaw, and departs without another word. For the first time since they built a friendship between them, Rosaria does not bid him goodbye.

There’s something wrong. Kaeya can feel it. Dread curdles in his stomach, and when he considers returning to work it only gets worse. He abandons his duties for the day, resolving to get some rest, some distance, and to let everything settle back to normal tomorrow. There’s no use for a Knight who keeps jumping at shadows. 

He makes a slight detour on the way home to collect his regular maintenance order from Schultz’s Blacksmith, reciting the details by easy rote and leaning against the table as he waits.

Wagner returns not with the usual sword oil and whetstone, but with a book of record and no recollection of any funds received. He shows Kaeya where it should have been noted, on the line under PAYMENT that contains client details. There is only blank space.

Kaeya has always covered his orders seasonally. He does the work in bulk to save them all the headache of weekly paperwork, and there has never been any issue with the organisation of Wagner’s records. “Perhaps it was Schulz who processed the order?” Kaeya suggests, though he knows it was not.

Wagner grunts. “I’ll talk to him when he’s in.”

Kaeya wakes to a dull, cloudy sky and a ball of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Yesterday was strange, and the sense of it has not entirely left him yet. He considers, turning over in his sheets. He can explain away some of the oddities—Rosaria often has late nights that leave her half-asleep all day, so perhaps it had been a particularly long evening. Wagner may have misplaced Kaeya's payment if he received a large bout of business, and it is a popular season for weapons maintenance.

The excuses ring hollow inside him, so he swallows them down. He needs more information before he can come to any kind of conclusions.

Jean, however—she concerns him. She is clockwork; she is bedrock. She is the backbone of the Ordo Favonius, the Dandelion and Lionfang Knight of Mondstadt. She is always on time and capable to a fault, and she has a terrible habit of taking on more than she can handle. If she is forgetting routine matters such as their regular meetings, then Kaeya shouldn't wait to check on her. It wouldn't be the first time he's had to prevent her from burying herself under the heavy load.

He makes his way to Headquarters amidst an unseasonable chill, early enough that Jean won’t be in her office. Inside, he looks at her desk with dismay. The amount of paperwork is so much worse than he thought. He steals the forms he recognises with a sigh, resigning himself to a very long day ahead. He won't get away with doing this unnoticed in the long term—he never does—but she can't stop him if he's already completed the work. He sits at his desk, pen at the ready… and hangs his head. It's one thing to want to help his Acting Grand Master, but now he has to actually do it.

Time passes quickly despite the mundanity of the task, and Kaeya only looks up when his back begins to protest at the maintained position. He yawns, stands, and makes his way to the window, giving his eye something other than tiny text and white pages to focus on. Below is the typical bustle at the shops, Anna praying by the rushing fountain, and the eternally-gossiping Fatui agents pointing at the people meandering below. This city is predictable in many ways, but that is a comfort to Kaeya. 

He knows Mondstadt, and Mondstadt knows him.

And still, something still doesn’t sit right. The memory of how Noelle hadn’t reacted to his presence, the strange, slow way Jean and Rosaria stared at him. Kaeya’s thoughts aren’t fully formed, but he lets his feet carry him to the library. He just needs to check. 

He takes a welcome break from the endless pile of forms atop his desk, and nods at Wyratt when he enters. Inside, Lisa sits behind her desk, stacks of books awaiting check-in at her left and a steaming pot of tea at her right. 

He approaches her with a jaunty wave. “Good afternoon.”

Lisa looks up from the page she is tracing with one long-nailed finger and offers a reserved smile. “Welcome to the Ordo Favonius library. What brings you here today?”

Kaeya's brows knit without his permission as his expression freezes on his face. When he speaks, it is barely a croak. “Lisa? It's Kaeya?”

She squints, looks away, shakes her head, and when she focuses on him again he can see the difference in her eyes. “Oh, yes, of course, cutie.” Kaeya wanted to ask her about Jean and the day before, but there is a growing panic at the base of his spine, and suddenly he needs to know if— if there really is something—

“Do you have any material on memories? Perhaps... memory manipulation?” He asks, and fights to keep his tone even, to keep his voice from breaking.

Lisa taps her nail against her teacup and hums thoughtfully. “In fact, I do believe we do. I can find it for you, just a moment.” She stands, runs her hands down her skirt to work away the wrinkles, and passes him to disappear down one of the shelf-heavy halls. Kaeya presses his palm to his eye and sways.

When he blinks his gaze back into focus, he’s immediately drawn to the book at the top of the return stack. It’s old, far older than the rest, and in worse shape than anything he would expect Lisa to leave out on the main floor. The leather is burnished orange and faded, as if painted a lifetime ago. The pages look as if they could turn to dust at a single touch. He reaches for it, curious, and immediately drops it—it’s deceptively heavy, the sort of weight he would expect from a tome three times its size. Kaeya quickly tries to hide his fumble from Lisa’s unforgiving gaze, and in the process it falls open to a random page, one that he casts his eye over.

Adrenaline freezes him in place and makes his hands shake. His name is in this book. Kaeya barely reads a sentence before—

“Hello, earth to cutie?” Lisa coos, and Kaeya startles, snapping it shut. She walks around him to set a small, red journal on the check-out table. “This is the only match I can think of for your guidelines. It's getting close to the end of the day, though, so would you mind checking this out instead of reading it here?”

Kaeya is still processing. He nods absently and offers her the book in his hands to take as well. His eye wander as she notes down the details of his loan, absently tracing the movements of dust motes exposed by the filtered light through the windows. His name...

“There you are,” Lisa says, winking when he glances back at her. “Oh, and sweetie? Do be mindful not to bring your own books in here next time. It's far too easy for them to get lost amongst the library's own.”

“My own books?” Kaeya repeats slowly, crossing his arms.

Lisa gestures. “This poor old thing. It's already in quite a state of disrepair. You really ought to take better care of it.”

Kaeya blinks at her like a fool. He doesn't know what to say. There is no book in this library that Lisa is not familiar with, and he picked it up right out of her returns pile. He has no witty response, no clever probe. He smiles widely at her, and he carries the two books out of the library in silence.

When he gets home, he opens it, and all the pages are blank.

He scrutinises himself in the mirror, half-dazed. He looks the same as always. There is nothing that stands out to his inspection that would merit the lack of recognition, the staring. He brushes his fingers against his reflection and watches the smudges distort his eye.

The heavy pour of rain beckons Kaeya from a fitful slumber. He rolls over to press his face into his cool pillow and keeps his eyes firmly shut. Heavy beats at his window, a heavy heart in his chest. Nothing has settled in his stomach. 

The idea comes to him in a rush, driving him from his bed to a flurry of activity. Diluc. He is one of the most consistent, stubborn people Kaeya has ever known. He’s never forgotten a face or a name, not even when they were children. And surely their shared past cannot be so easily discarded?

The rain grants him no quarter on the journey to Dawn Winery. Kaeya pulls his cloak tight, already more than half-soaked, as he walks the familiar grapevines that line the grounds. He struggles through the muck, cursing the summer storms Mondstadt favours with each slippery step. 

Adelinde answers when he knocks. She has barely aged since he last saw her all those years ago, the same style of hair, same rigid posture, and it makes him smile to see it. He greets her warmly, with all the affection she deserves. She was always kind to him as a young boy, always had time for his questions, his childish impulses, and the way he hid shyly behind her legs when a new guest visited the estate. He expects a comment about his height, about the breadth of his shoulders, about the way he is showing up unannounced after so much time. Instead, he is met with a complete lack of recognition on her face and a mistrustful stare. “Good day. What is your business here?”

Kaeya smothers his dismay beneath the growing need to speak with Diluc. “Is the Master of the house home?”

“Master Diluc is home, yes,” Adelinde replies with a wary tone. She moves to block his view of the inside with her body. She does not invite him in.

Something inside Kaeya cracks a bit. “Could I speak with him?”

Adelinde reluctantly lets him step into the foyer with a stern request to stay put lest he track wet and mud onto the carpets. The Winery Manor is exactly as he remembers it, ornate wooden furniture, warm lighting, red accents. He once swung tiny legs from the familiar chairs that surround a table in the middle of the room. He once slid down the banister of that staircase, earning many a painful tumble amidst the glee. And… the vase Kaeya left to Diluc sits atop a pedestal in the corner, hilariously hideous against the otherwise lavish decoration.

He breathes a sigh of relief. It’s still there; this is a good sign.

All that hope escapes him in a hot, painful rush as Diluc comes down the stairs. He is frowning, but not in the way he often does at Kaeya, with a caring type of scorn that blooms from their long, complicated past together. Not an expression of concern, that of all people it would be Kaeya at his front step in the pouring rain. 

No. Diluc gazes at him distantly, like he’s a stranger, and Kaeya feels something integral inside him crumble at the sight.

“What can I do for you?” He asks, as if he has never met Kaeya before. Never smuggled sweets from the kitchen, or dreamed of being Knights together, or raced up and down the beaches with giant squeals of joy. As if Kaeya didn’t grow up in his shadow, watch his world shatter, earn his vision at Diluc’s hand.

Kaeya exhales a shaky, small sound at the hurt that lances through him. He puts that cracked-mask smile back on his face and gestures at the vase. “I simply wondered where you acquired such a piece?”

Diluc’s expression is stormy, dismissive. It’s the one he reserves for drunkards in the tavern, for kicking out unwanted troublemakers. He glances back at the clashing, hideous vase, and for a moment Kaeya is sure his face softens, like he remembers.

If it did, it does not last. When he faces Kaeya, there is no trace of goodwill within.

“Leave.”

He returns home in a daze, sopping wet, having long given up preventing the rain’s saturation through his cloak. Kaeya's mind races in fits and bursts, grasping for sense amidst spinning despair. There is no logic that can make sense of what is happening.

He opens the door of his apartment to the sight of a stranger dressed in a grey ornamental suit and insignia-pinned scarf, leafing through that strange, heavy book Kaeya borrowed from Lisa and leaning against Kaeya's bookshelf as if he belongs here.

Kaeya lunges before the man can finish turning towards the door, trapping him with a tensed forearm and a hidden knife kissing his throat. Kaeya demands, hoarse and uncompromising, “Who are you?”

A too-wide smile and a half-lidded gaze smugly reply, “Now, is this any way to greet me?”

Kaeya blinks, and their positions reverse. He is trapped against his own wall of books, with the man leaning in close and intimate and comfortable, hands tight and merciless around his wrists, hot breath against his neck. “Oh, I have missed you,           .”

Kaeya's heart skips a stutter of surprised beats before he can summon the energy to shove back. Books clatter to the floor behind him as he pushes off, throws a solid connecting punch, and knocks the stranger flat on his back atop Kaeya's table.

“Answer me,” Kaeya hisses, and the man chuckles and wipes at a smear of blood from his burst lip. His pupils are pinpricks. There is no light behind the dull blue of his gaze.

“Which name would you like to use this time,           ? Childe, Tartaglia, Ajax?” He drags his eyes down Kaeya's body and licks too-long at the blood on his hand, like a tease, like a challenge, and Kaeya has to force his self-control back together.

“Childe, then,” Kaeya hisses. “What is your goal in ambushing me in my own home, hmm? Surely not for my books.” He rubs at his knuckles and glares down at the prone form.

A gleam eclipses Childe's eyes as he sits up and gets comfortable, swinging his legs back and forth with a strange kind of levity. “That was quite the explosive greeting. Though, I suppose that is fairly standard for us, isn't it?” Childe's voice is low, slightly rough, and carries a cadence entirely unfamiliar, an accent Kaeya can’t place. Everything about him is new—Kaeya knows it in his gut. He has never met him before.

“You didn’t answer my question. And how do you know who I am?” Kaeya asks. He doesn't know how Childe got the slip on Kaeya and flipped their positions without a tell—he’ll need to keep his guard all the way up. 

“How do I know you?” Childe laughs, explosive, maniacal, holding out a hand to beckon Kaeya closer with all the trustworthy charisma of a snake-oil salesman. The offer hovers useless in the air between them until he shrugs, unbothered, and rests himself back against the table. “Let's see, you're looking for compliments, then? I can do that. You are daring, handsome, witty—” 

He hops up suddenly, right in Kaeya's face with those intense eyes and that curl-wide smile. “—ruthless, cruel... the most beautiful man I have ever known, soaked in blood by my side.”

Kaeya shoves at him again, but Childe does not budge an inch. He laughs, and it’s bright and musical and delighted. “You never fail to keep me on my toes. Ah,           , you are unmatched.”

He's wrong. Kaeya has never met him, never battled by his side, never… been soaked in blood at all. Normally he would dismiss these lunatic ravings, just arrest Childe and be done with it, but he’s tired, uncomfortable, and soaked to the bone. He’s unsettled by the way Childe moves in a blink, and he’s still reeling from Diluc throwing him out as a stranger.

“You have the wrong man,” Kaeya insists, readying to draw his blade. “Now get out of my apartment.”

Childe just lifts his hands in easy placation. “Yes, yes, of course. I'll see you soon.”

The moment the door shuts behind him, Kaeya collapses onto the floor. He pulls his knees to his chest and rocks back and forth, holding himself together. It’s not a dream, he knows it—his luck isn’t that good. But, if it isn’t a dream...

It’s not until his head hits the pillow that he thinks to wonder—how was Childe completely dry with such a raging storm outside?

Sunlight on his face and a deep chill under his skin. Kaeya groans and rolls over. He should have warmed himself from the rain last night, but he was distressed enough that he just stripped and crawled under the covers. Now he gets to pay for it.

His head throbs when he sits up and squints through the bright sun, blearily making out the sight of the shops opening below. The warmth does not transfer to him. He wraps his arms around his legs and shudders with it.

This time, he's stopped at the entrance to Knights HQ. “What is your business inside?” Porthos inquires, posture rigid and formal. Kaeya’s lips twitch in a defensive smile, but there is no humour within him.

“It's Kaeya. Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius?” He searches Porthos' face for any hint of recognition, but finds nothing. It sparks an idea inside him. What if he can force a memory? “I helped you summon the courage to ask Brent for drinks last week after you spent two straight months losing your nerve. I taught you half the swordplay you know and gave you an accidental haircut in the process that I believe Athos still talks about. Porthos, it's me.”

He can hear his voice going slightly desperate, but he's at a loss, and he needs this to work. He knows this man, he's worked with him for years. Where are these memories going? What is taking them away?

Porthos steps back, wobbling as if his legs have become suddenly unstable. He shakes his head, and his voice falters. “No, I— wait—”

There's something there, something hidden behind his eyes. It’s a chance, and Kaeya pounces on it. He fills the space, walking forward as he speaks. “I smuggled you a cider at the Windblume Festival, and Huffman nearly caught you with it because your bluffs are tragic at best. You swore off playing cards with me because I always win, and you’ve never accepted that I don’t have to cheat to do it.”

Porthos keeps trying to look away from Kaeya, but Kaeya doesn't stop. Not even when he’s right in front of him, looking down into his eyes. He doesn’t even blink. Porthos has to remember. He has to.

“I've seen you almost every day for the last four years, Porthos. You can't tell me you've just forgotten.”

Porthos sways where he stands, clenching at his spear for some measure of balance, before finally—finally—

“Oh, Captain, I-I'm not sure what happened. I, ah, of course you can enter.” He gestures towards the door with a trembling arm, and Kaeya exhales a shaky sense of relief. Whatever is going on, at least he can take some measure of control back. He can remind people—

“Just don't cause any trouble inside, civilian,” Porthos concludes, his voice strange, his posture back to ramrod straight, and his gaze a neutral, unfamiliar stare.

Kaeya stumbles. 

His pulse pounds in his throat, his vision swims, and he races inside.

“JEAN!” he calls, ignoring Wyratt’s shocked yell from the library door, bursting into her office and skidding to a stop at her desk. Jean is already half-way to standing, glaring at the intrusion and slamming her hands on her desk.

“What—who are you—” She demands, clearly taken aback, already reaching for her sword.

“Wait,” Kaeya beseeches. “Wait, just. Listen. Jean, it's me. It's Kaeya. Your friend, your Cavalry Captain. Don’t you recognise me?”

She opens her mouth with a protest clear on her lips, and he waves his hands in front of her, frantic with it. “Jean, think. Who was it you left your work to during the Windblume Festival? Who encouraged you to go to the Golden Apple Archipelago when Klee needed you? Who has been beside you for the last four years, after Varka took off and left all of us with the weight of Mondstadt's protection?”

Jean is silent, the hand reaching for her sword left hanging in the air.

“You were the one I turned to when I fled the Ragnvindr estate. When Diluc left, we only had each other, don’t you—” The look in her eyes cuts him to the core. It's not working. He scours his mind to find some way he can trigger her memory. Perhaps if he focuses on her instead?

Kaeya takes a deep breath, braces himself, and opens up—he shares details that he’s never let on that he's observed, spills all his half-hidden affection for her. “You love your sister, but it's a complicated relationship. The way your parents raised you means you never completely formed a familial bond, and you let the responsibility on your shoulders keep you from relating to her as much as you’d like. You're the best person I have ever met, and you've never once made me feel like I am not good enough to be here, in the Knights, you—” His voice cracks, and his eyes are hot, but he doesn’t blink. Not even once. “You're my friend.”

The paperwork. That’s it! “You always scold me when I take work from your desk, which I just did. It's still in my office. It's still there—”

He'll bring it to her, he'll bring hard proof. Jean has always been reasonable. Surely, if he can just— Kaeya exits her office, ignores her confused shout, and sprints up the stairs, around the corner, rushing into—

This is his office. High stacks of reference materials tower up from the floor, his meticulous notes protruding throughout the pages. Books line the walls, and a map of Mond hangs with assorted pins and twine. The curtains are tied back from the single, large window that lets in the light. Everything else is the same, but on the desk there is no paperwork. There’s no trace of it; not even a single sheet or tiny scrap.

It freezes him in place and leaves him with nothing to say for himself when Jean bursts in and grips his shoulder firmly from behind. 

“You need to go. Look,” she sighs heavily, and Kaeya cannot even open his mouth to speak. “I can take you to the Cathedral for healing, perhaps you've been addled in some way, but—”

He stops listening, half-crushed from a sudden, painful realisation. This is where he works every day, but he has never once placed photographs here, never left personal mementos. He has never left a hint of his personality among the pens on his desk or the reports filed away. There's nothing to show Jean. The paperwork is gone, so there are no signatures, and no hard evidence of his work, his role, or him. 

Nothing.

There is distant, firm concern on Jean’s features. He presses his eyes shut and shapes the ache into a smile.

“You really don't remember me, do you?"

Jean takes his arm, and he is firmly escorted out. At the entrance, he declines the offer of a visit to the Cathedral. He does not need healing. There is nothing physically wrong with him that can be mended. 

He looks up at the windmills, and they spin, and spin, and spin. He feels nauseated.

Sleep eludes him, leaves him restless into the night. He can’t stop thinking about that book—how it bore his name, yet was somehow blank once removed from the library. He tries to sleep, but he sees it behind his eyelids every time he closes his eyes. It taunts him. It torments him. After a few torturous hours, he finally stands, throws back the covers, and walks to his desk to check it once more.

It’s not there.

Kaeya’s heart leaps into his throat. He whirls around to his bookshelf and skims, half-frantic. Where is it? Where was the last—

Childe. He was reading it. Kaeya searches his memory for what he had done with the book, but he can’t recall. He was too taken aback by that strange attitude, by the way he insisted he remembered Kaeya… 

He sets his jaw. In the morning, he will go back to the library and see if there are any others like it. This is his only lead thus far, and he is resolute. If something is making the people of Mondstadt forget him, he’ll not let it happen without a fight.

The guards interrogate him at the entrance, but this time he is prepared. He spins a silver-tongued tale of a humble traveller seeking wisdom from Mond’s infamous collection of folklore. He compliments the organisation of the Knights, the foresight to create such a cultural cornerstone as this place, how lovely it is that they protect this beautiful city.

They let him in without any fuss.

Lisa's teacup is half to her lips when he enters, already bracing himself for a distant greeting. He readied himself for the hit, but it still hurts when it lands. “Welcome to the Knights of Favonius Library. How can I help you?”

He wonders, will she recall the events of a few days past? “We’ve already had this conversation,” he tests, but receives only disappointment when confusion passes over her features.

“What do you mean? I’ve never seen you before, cutie. Now, how can I help you?”

Kaeya sighs and glances towards the window. Muddy light filters through from the overcast clouds outside and keeps the library in a perpetual state of feeling half-dim, sheltered, a bastion against the outside world. He remembers hours of study time, the way he used to practice and memorise for his exams when he still dreamed of becoming a Knight.

A pang of loss rocks him to his core, and he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Have you ever heard of a phenomenon where someone is forgotten by everyone around them?” He inquires, and she tilts her head at the question.

“Interesting. A fictional piece?” She asks, intrigued, and he shakes his head.

“No, a genuine occurrence.”

Lisa is a skeptic, but she is also a scholar, and he can see she is intrigued by the possibility. She taps a nail against her teacup as she thinks aloud. “Perhaps. There is one…”

As she muses, he casts his gaze across her desk to the returns pile, and—there it is, there’s that book. His book. He forces himself to not react, to meet Lisa's gaze with a casual smile when she passes him to look up what matched his criteria. He does not care anymore what she will bring back. He has something else to read.

Kaeya picks it up with a tremble and runs his hand along the impression at the front. There is a picture here, a pattern that he did not notice before, that he doesn’t recognise. He takes a deep breath and carries it to the nearest seat, sinking down with his heart in his throat and sweat pricking hot at the back of his neck.

He opens it, and for a long time he can barely breathe for what is inside. 

It is titled ‘                                                                    ’. It does not have a table of contents, a dedication, or a prologue. It begins, immediate and intense. Kaeya reads like a man possessed, devouring it, half-horrified, half-thrilled.

It has his name within, but it is not about him. It is the story of a life, but not his life. Between these pages is a preserved legacy of blood, of horror, of ruin. The man within is not who Kaeya recognises in the mirror, but a man who makes horrible sacrifices, whose hands are stained with the endless blood he has spilled. 

Perhaps this is the man Childe refers to, when he says he knows Kaeya well.

The moment he takes this from the library there is a good chance he will again be greeted with empty pages, so he lingers as much as possible. He half-ignores Lisa when she returns with a red journal that she believes is a strong match. He stays where he sits, wrapped up in the tale before him, until finally there is a touch to his shoulder and he leaps with a startled snarl, only two-thirds of the way through.

“Sir?” Lisa says, lips set in an unfriendly response to his aggression, “We're closing for the day. Will you be checking out that book?”

He forces his racing heart to calm, and Kaeya brings both heavy tome and old journal to her desk. Another question crosses his mind— if she did not remember the past few days, will she remember the past few hours?

“Just what you've recommended, thank you,” he requests, and carefully observes as she writes out the details without question. So, she can recall that they discussed his interest in a specific topic, but not any details about Kaeya. This means it is not an issue of memory in general. It's likely isolated to their memory of him.

The difference between those thoughts should be a tiny margin, but it forms a vast chasm inside him, one that rends at his heart and reveals just how desperately Kaeya does not want to be forgotten.

“What name am I loaning these under?” Lisa asks him. Still reeling, Kaeya gives her the first to come to mind. “Childe, hm? What a very old name.”

He is unsurprised when she does not check out the second book, but it still sends a chill down his spine to hear her repeat herself. “Oh, and cutie, do be mindful not to bring your own books in here next time. It’s far too easy for them to get lost amongst the library’s own.”

Kaeya says nothing as he leaves.

His door is barely shut when he drops the books on his desk and heads straight for his mirror. He slams his hands down on the porcelain sink, ignoring the cascade of tingles that race up his forearms. His pale blue eye fixes firmly on his reflection in the mirror, and he catches a glimpse of a very old scar.

It is a curling, pale memory of a training lesson early into his career with the Knights. He was sparring with Bennett, teaching the young Adventurer how best to parry, to strike—and the boy managed to pull off such a clumsy maneuver that he sliced Kaeya's forearm just above his glove. The injury wasn’t threatening, but it did leave behind a permanent mark.

A mark...

Kaeya fumbles at his collar and pulls it aside. At the dip of his shoulder lies an old, wide scar from a very different wound. He presses down hard on it and rubs at the edge, feels the difference in texture and how his nerves experience sensation. It's shiny-smooth, numb in places, and exactly as he recalls. This small thing brings him such a massive rush of relief that he has to blink fast to keep his cheeks dry. These, at least, are proof his memories are real. That he’s real. 

Kaeya crushes his fingers into his skin until it aches.

A pounding storm at his window, and Kaeya lies awake. He thinks of everyone he has ever known in Mondstadt, of all the ways he has left an impression in their lives. He tries to recall the places he has walked, the decisions he has influenced. Surely the measure of his existence cannot be so easily erased without any consequence?

The rain pelts, and Kaeya thinks of Diluc. He has always reacted with an extreme amount of emotion and irritation where Kaeya is involved. Since their time apart, the embers of their friendship have burned hot and cold and never, ever easy. 

There was something in his eyes when he looked at that vase that Kaeya gave him. There was a sense of meaning, some emotion that he felt. It's worth a shot. Diluc has never felt nothing when it comes to Kaeya. If Kaeya can bait him into reacting, into a rise, into anger—

Perhaps he'll remember then.

Kaeya wraps himself up in a cloak and departs. He tests the tavern first, but Charles informs him that Diluc will not be working a shift today. It seems yet another rain-soaked trip to the Winery grounds is in order. 

It’s surreal to be back here in this weather, with the squelch of mud beneath his boots and the fresh scent of lush grapevine and all this rain. He shivers and pulls his cloak closer around himself. This downpour could be a blessing. It is the perfect backdrop for memories when it comes to him and Diluc.

He knocks at the door and does not wait to be beckoned inside. He dodges past Adelinde, dropping his wet cloak in the middle of the foyer amidst her protests, trailing mud in the direction of the stairs. Diluc will hate this. Good. Kaeya ascends with as much noise as possible and finds his reward when the study door slams open.

Diluc is a vision of fury in the candlelight, all flaming hair and burning eyes, his fists clenched and his lips twisted in a frown. He bellows at Kaeya, and Kaeya ignores the way his instincts call to flee. “Who sent you?”

Kaeya swallows and steels himself. He knows just how to get a rise out of Diluc—he always has. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He dives to the left, narrowly avoiding Diluc’s sudden, burning claymore. “Darknight Hero?”

Diluc’s grip on Kaeya’s throat shocks him. It’s crushing, powerful, and it comes out of nowhere. Kaeya grunts with pain as it’s used to slam him up against the wall, Diluc’s temper just as hot as the weapon he now discards. “Who are you? I don't know you—”

Kaeya squirms against the hold, choking out his words between gasps for air. “I'm the one you grew up with, who Crepus took in—agh—”

Diluc’s throttle goes tighter, and Kaeya’s head spins with a screaming lack of oxygen. “Keep my father’s name out of your mouth. I’ve never seen you before a day in my life.”

He reels back and slams Kaeya against the wall again, and as his vision begins to fade, dark-rimmed and dizzy, Kaeya rasps, “I can prove it—”

Diluc releases his throat and Kaeya stumbles on his feet, coughing and hacking for air. He blinks tears from his eye, and when Diluc reaches for him again, Kaeya dodges around him and sprints into the study. He pulls open all the drawers in Crepus’ old desk, rifling through, desperately looking for something, anything, that has his name on it—

He miscalculated how dangerous Diluc’s reaction would be to a stranger invading his home, and Kaeya does not find anything useful before Diluc is right there, no recognition in his eyes. Kaeya tries another tactic, despairing, “You and I— we used to doodle in the backs of the books in the Estate, but I don't think you kept any when you sold it. We grew up together, Diluc, we— we were friends.”

Nothing. Nothing at all. Kaeya grips at his heart and does the last thing he can think of, breaks his vow of silence to himself, his promise to never again speak this aloud—

“I'm a spy sent from Khaenri'ah. The night I told you, I got my Vision,” Kaeya says, and coughs from the rough pain of his abused throat. “You left the Knights, and then you left entirely, and you've never been the same since—”

“You're drunk,” Diluc spits. “You're not making any sense. A spy from Khaenri'ah? They've been gone for hundreds of years.” He lifts Kaeya off the ground and forcibly drags him out, speaking all the while, ignoring the way Kaeya fights at his grip.

“I don't know where you came up with these delusions, but you should seek some measure of assistance with your health, stranger.”

“It's Kaeya," Kaeya hisses, breaking out of Diluc's hold before they reach the stairs. “Say my name, why won't you just say my name?”

“You need to leave,” Diluc insists, and Kaeya wraps his arms around himself as a shiver wracks him. “Now. Go home.”

Kaeya has no more ideas. He descends the stairs in silence and gathers his drenched cloak. He does not look Adelinde in the eye as he steps out into the storm. There’s no room for coherent thought inside him as he walks away.

When he enters his apartment, soaked through to the bone and wearing tears beneath it all, Childe is there. He's sitting on Kaeya's couch, dry, in the same grey outfit. He has a wide smile on his face like he's happy to see Kaeya, and it sunders him inside with an immediacy he is not prepared for.

He hates this feeling, hates that part of him wants to reach for Childe, hates that this is the only person who remembers Kaeya for longer than a split second of an interaction. He hates it, but he doesn’t feel real—cold and untethered from reality—and when Childe opens his arms, he looks expectant, eager, and inviting. He beckons Kaeya with a murmur. “Come here           , you’re nearly frozen.”

Kaeya squeezes his eyes shut and shudders where he stands. And then he's stripping off his outer layers, down to his leggings and wet shirt, and he does. He crawls onto the couch and into Childe's arms, and pretends none of this is real. That none of it is happening.

Childe is warm to the touch, so hot against Kaeya's frozen skin that he can't help the instinct to be closer. He smells good, like clean linen and musk, and he says nothing about how wet Kaeya is as he wraps his arms around and draws him in.

A hand around his waist and another stroking at his back, and Kaeya is wracked by a burst of devastated chills. Childe coos a soft sound at him and begins to whisper, and Kaeya cannot hear anything but his voice, low and sweet.

He soothes Kaeya with stories of beautiful places he claims they have been, of bioluminescent caves with pools of water that reflect neon aqua, of icy tundra speckled with blooming purple fields of fawn lilies. He speaks of hot cups of sweetened fruit tea, of catching and cooking fish, and of alcohol by a winter's bonfire.

He touches Kaeya as if he is entirely familiar with him, as if he knows just the right way to hold him close so his body can unwind and relax. It should be strange; it should feel uncomfortable, but even though Kaeya does not share these memories, does not belong with this man, he finds himself wishing that he did.

He has always dripped truth carefully into every interaction with the people in his life, opened up in calculated, small ways to only a select few. Now those few do not recall he ever existed, and he is left with no one who knows him. No one who loves him.

Childe's smile is wide and his gaze is fond. The hand that has migrated up to the back of Kaeya's neck is warm, and his words are reassuring, kind. It’s too much. Kaeya turns in his embrace and begins to shake. Drops fall from his eyes, from beneath his eye patch, running down his face and darkening the fabric of his shirt where it had finally begun to dry.

He doesn't feel like a real person anymore. “Tell me,” he pleads, he pretends, he breaks.

Soft lips press to his temple and Kaeya squeeses his eyes shut, hard. “Of course,           . Anything you wish, I will give. You know this.” The words are overly intimate, and part of Kaeya feels an urge to flee from them, but the majority of him grips onto the familiarity like a lifeline. Childe is all around him, his hand cupping his cheek, his touch as bare as smoke, and his voice so low Kaeya strains to hear it.

“You are a marvel of a man,” Childe whispers, shifting to sit beside Kaeya, their thighs pressed together on the cushions and his arm still curled around Kaeya’s back. “Ruthless in the pursuit of what you want, beautiful when the moonlight reflects off your bloody body, and never, ever, anything less than remarkable.”

Kaeya shudders and watches the way Childe’s lips widen in their smile, how his eyes drop to Kaeya’s own. “You and I, the sins we have committed… stunning,” he runs a finger down Kaeya’s neck and goosebumps wash over Kaeya's skin. “Gripping,” he says, his mouth a hair's-breadth from Kaeya’s. “And irredeemable,” he croons, as he tilts Kaeya’s chin back and somehow slithers all the closer.

His words are consuming, and Kaeya cannot look away from his flat, dead eyes. When Childe shifts to the other side of him, Kaeya’s head moves with the motion as if pulled on a string. He feels like he is still being choked, like all the oxygen is being sucked out of the room, and his head begins to spin with the disorientation. The man he sees in the mirror is not who Childe knows him to be, and it confuses him. He has lost any type of north star to gauge who he is inside.

“You have the wrong man,” he breathes, and he sounds weak to his own ears. “I have never done these things you say.”

Childe laughs, and Kaeya’s pulse leaps and flutters. “You are clever with your games. It has been some time since we played this one, but I’ll indulge you. After all, you are the love of my life.” He ducks his head and Kaeya gasps at the startling sensations: hot lips against his neck, a gentle nip, and a puff of air. His hands fly up to Childe's shoulders, but he doesn't need to push away—Childe retreats easily at the touch with a soft sound before he winks and—and Kaeya’s being kissed. Childe's mouth is cold on his, so cold it could be the touch of a corpse, a dead thing. Kaeya gasps and tastes the whisper against his mouth—“I'll see you soon,          ”—and then Childe’s touch is gone.

Kaeya is alone on his couch. There is no one else in the room with him. His hands shake as he stands, as he mindlessly walks to his washroom. He splashes water on his face, and when he meets his own gaze, he catches sight of a love-bite left on his neck. He sinks to his knees, choking back a cry.

Kaeya does not want to be awake. Sun blinds him where he lies and leaves bright spots behind his eyelid when he rolls away from it. The way it makes his head throb has him almost preferring the storms.

It's strange, though. Kaeya cannot recall the last time Mond has had such frequent rain— OH. The answer clicks in his mind so seamlessly, so clearly, so obviously that he nearly screams with fury for not making the connection sooner.

Mondstadt does not have rain with such regular frequency. Never in all his years living in Teyvat has this been the case. The crops that grow here, the wildflowers and herbs and shrubbery—all enjoy the moderate temperature, but they would not survive such a rapid onslaught of constant soil saturation. The trees here do not grow their roots low enough to maintain their position. There isn't enough runoff protection in Mondstadt for this type of climate.

So, what if this isn't a case of frequent storms? What if...

Kaeya throws back the covers and leaps to his feet. Sure enough, there is no trace of that strange book—even though Childe had not touched it last night. He sits on the corner of his mattress and presses his hands to his face.

How many loops has it been? He can't be sure. The first strange moment he noticed was Jean's missed meeting but... had something been happening beforehand? He wracks his memory for anything out of the ordinary—anything that might stand out in his interactions with the people of Mondstadt—but comes up with nothing.

Kaeya tests his theory with despair. He wanders the streets in the pure sunlight, and all around him are suspicious looks. He walks below the windmills, rotating eternal, never ceasing, and when he sees who always sits on these benches, he gets an idea.

Glory.

She has always identified him by nothing more than his stride and the length of his legs. If there is any relation between the way he is being forgotten and the act of perception, of visual connection... she could be a loophole.

He approaches her, more aware than ever of the way he moves, the shift of his weight, the sway of his hips, the length of his legs. He wonders—is anything changing about it? Will she not recognise him because he is too conscious of it? And if she does recognise him, what does he do next?

He takes a deep breath and stops in front of her. His smile is cracked bone and his voice is raw, rough. He feels as if he is being whittled away, reaching and reaching but finding nothing to grasp. He's sinking into himself, unreachable, and—

“Hello,” Glory says, voice sweet and friendly.

“Hello,” Kaeya replies, and tries to keep from sounding desperate. “This may seem a strange question, but do you know who I am?”

Glory does not respond immediately. Kaeya stands with his knees locked and tremors running through his body. She should remember him. She will remember him. She must remember him. 

“Have we met before?” She asks quietly, and Kaeya bites his tongue hard enough to bleed.

“Yes,” he says, “yes, we—you put up occasional commissions for the Adventurer's Guild, for us to collect dandelion seeds to scatter with a message for Godwin. I have been with the Traveller when they fulfill your requests, and when they bring back letters from him to read to you.”

She leans back from him in her seat and he begins to panic.

“You once told me I have possibly the longest legs in Mondstadt. I still think about that when I run up stairs,” he admits, breathless. “You truly don't know me?”

Glory shifts to the side of the bench and murmurs, “No, I'm afraid I don't— I—”

Kaeya turns his head to the sky and makes a frustrated noise between gritted teeth—how can he prove it to her? 

“Wait, I—” She continues, and Kaeya's attention falls entirely to her. “I think I might, but the name escapes me…”

Kaeya swallows as his heart flies into his throat. “I'm Kaeya.”

Glory nods, and in a rushing, blinding moment, a plan to resolve this sweeps through him. Glory can remember him, so what if he were to blindfold someone and do the same? Someone like... Rosaria, who might recognise his habit of bumping shoulders with her, or— or Diluc, with the way he used to make fun of Kaeya's strange way of holding a pen. 

It's a place to start, it's a lead, it's SOMETHING—

Glory scoots around him and takes off running down the street. Kaeya pauses for only a moment before he races after her.

“Glory, wait—”

She pants, breathing hard as she scrambles to get away from him, and though he catches up in nearly an instant he doesn’t know how to stop her without causing them both to fall to the ground. How can he indicate without visual—

“Leave me alone!” She shrieks, and then there’s a firm grip on Kaeya’s shirt, dragging him into Raymond, a stern glare and a threatening stance.

“Is this man bothering you, Glory?” He asks, and to Kaeya's sinking horror, she nods and hides behind him.

Of course. She lied to him; she didn't recognise him at all. He must have scared her. Kaeya feels a hysterical sound bubbling up in his chest that he bites back with the taste of cut-tongue blood behind his teeth. 

“I believe this was a misunderstanding,” he explains, and steps back from Raymond, his hands up with his palms out. “I’ll leave you be.”

The weight of Raymond’s glare rests heavy as Kaeya walks away, half-numbly meandering towards the Cathedral. He is afraid of the answer, but he has to know—will Rosaria recognise him at all? She is always so perceptive, and even though she’s already struggled to remember him, she's the last person he can turn to.

She is in her usual spot, leaning against the wall of the Cathedral, cigarette firmly in hand. Kaeya saunters up to her and tries to seem natural about it, stays further away than he had before, not wanting to make the same mistake as with Glory. “Good afternoon,” he says, and bites back every part of him that wants to come closer, wants to treat her like the friend she's been for so long.

Rosaria grunts at him and looks at him through her lashes. “And who are you, then?”

Kaeya shouldn't be surprised. He knew that would be the expected outcome. It still hurts. He sighs, and decides to try something he hasn't tried yet. He introduces himself, plays along with it, pretends they truly are strangers. “Kaeya,” he offers, and summons the energy to smile at her. “Pleased to meet you.”

She grunts again and takes a long drag of her cigarette before asking aloud, “You’re a smoker?”

He is, sometimes, but only with her. He nods in lieu of that explanation. 

Rosaria breathes another long plume of smoke and turns to him with a piercing, fierce gaze. “Where are your cigarettes, then? Did you bring a lighter?”

Kaeya bites his lip. He has neither of these on him, and he doesn't even own a lighter at all. He has always just used hers. He doesn't know how to answer her question—saying no after confirming himself a smoker opens the door to far too many questions. 

Before he can decide how to respond, Rosaria looks him over and hums. “I don't do men, but you're rather handsome. I'm sure you'll have luck elsewhere.” She walks away from him without another word, and he’s left realising that she thought—

Kaeya scrubs at his face, rubbing his thumb along the string of his eyepatch. “...Fine,” he mutters aloud. “Fine.”

He stays up all night. He doesn't rest. He keeps himself from falling asleep with a chanted mantra whenever he wants to close his eyes.

He has to break the loop. He has to break the loop.

He gazes at the moon and stars and wills them to give him some sign of what’s going on. If he doesn't sleep, will time continue? If he stays awake, will he get past the storm?

He paces the floor, back and forth, back and forth. He stares unblinkingly at the place where he pushed Childe onto the table, then where they embraced on the couch. Childe feels like a ghost, like a hallucination, like some distant impossibility, and only the late-night sounds of wind and the occasional hoot, keep company with Kaeya's endless, endless pacing.

He walks into his washroom, goes to splash water on his face, but when he looks up at himself there's something wrong. He doesn't identify it right away, presses at his cheekbones and nose, tilts his head to the side and—

The lovebite is gone.

Kaeya freezes. And then a giggle rips from inside him, going hysterical along the way and bubbling up as a horrible, tormented sound. It's proof. It's a time loop. It has to be. 

There is physical evidence. He's not going crazy.

He's breathing so fast he's almost hyperventilating with it. He returns to his bedroom restlessly, contemplating that book. That book, and the other life contained within it, the one with his name amongst all that hell.

He stays like that until dawn, frozen where he sits, waiting. He knows what he needs to seek: more physical proof. There are registers of Knight activities, of missions, of rosters. One of these must contain his name.

He has to break the loop.

The sun rises and the sky is overcast, grey. Kaeya's eyes burn and he's exhausted enough that his head spins, but he knows exactly what to do. He's still wearing the day before's uniform, but it won't matter anyways. No one will remember his state of dress. He needs to prove this to himself just as much as anyone—he needs to see his name written somewhere, anywhere. He's desperate for it.

At first dawn, he heads directly to the Knight's HQ, mumbling an excuse of “Merchant, need information on Philanemo Mushrooms for sales purposes,” and ignores the wary way he is allowed to step foot inside.

The library is exactly as it has been the last two times he’s seen it. There is a stack of books to be returned beside Lisa, and a book atop them that makes him itch. He wants to read the ending, but first he has to see the historical rosters. Kaeya tries to avoid Lisa's watchful eye as he searches, and doesn't pay mind to the way people avoid him as he passes through the halls of shelves.

There it is. He lifts the tome and searches the index for his year’s exam results, and there’s the class list exactly where it should be. Kaeya sighs in relief—proof is only a few page flips away. He has to steady his hands. He's shaking. He's shaking all over. He swallows. He might have benefitted from sleep, from a cool drink of water, from anything to soothe his nerves. No matter now.

Kaeya skims down further and further. It's sorted by alphabetical order, but— hm. He's already passed the A's. He bites his lip and looks again. He's not there. Alberich is nowhere to be found. His eyes unfocus slightly and he sways.

He's not there.

Kaeya flips forward, seeking a listing for Ragnvindr—perhaps someone made a mistake and thought he was truly adopted? But no, he's not there either. He flips back to the A’s, reads through again and—there, that looks like a spot where his name should be, right between Albarmann and Aldrich.

He chews his lip as he stares at the blank spot, as if his name has been erased, and mutters the mantra that kept him going through the night. He has to break the loop.

A hand on his shoulder and Noelle’s polite cadence scatter his racing thoughts. “Um, sir, could you please be more quiet? You're worrying the other patrons— oh, your lip is bleeding badly, are you—”

He turns with a whirl, scattering the pages of the register between them, adrenaline coursing through his system. “Noelle,” he interrupts, and she cocks her head, concern written clear on her features.

“Have I met you before?”

Kaeya opens his mouth but—no, she won't remember him. “Are there any lists of graduate Knights in another location?”

Noelle thinks aloud, “You're really best off checking with Lisa, but I do believe I've come across a list in the Acting Grand Master's office. Perhaps they—”

Kaeya ignores the rest of her sentence. All he can think of is finding some kind of proof, of the space where his name should have been. He approaches Lisa with the scraps of the roster tucked crumpled under his arm. “This is incomplete,” he accuses, and dumps them on her desk, right in front of her.

Lisa stands, angry, but then visibly recoils, her eyes darting up and down. “You—”

He wildly shuffles the pages. He just has to find the one with the A’s so he can show her that there is a missing name. He can’t find it— they all got mixed up when Noelle bothered him. Lisa is talking, but he isn’t listening, he’s focused on his search, scrambling through the pages frantically. It was just here.  

Kaeya slams his hands down on the desk and— screams as an electrical current lances a splitting, blinding agony right through him. Lisa's hands are spread, a purple glow between illuminating her incensed features. The air crackles thick all around them. “Leave this library now.”

Kaeya gestures, agitated—she isn’t listening, “I don’t think you understand, this is missing my name. Don’t we have a complete record somewhere?” Lisa isn’t an unreasonable person, he just has to be more clear—it must be strange to hear, but—

Where was that blank spot? He flips through the sheets, two, three more— and there it is.

“Here,” he exclaims, holding the paper up. “There’s the empty spot— right beside Cavalry Captain.”

He’s wrenched backwards and Jean’s frown comes into view. “Lisa, do you know this man?”

Lisa, scowl still written firmly across her face, her palms crackling with energy, looks Kaeya dead in the eyes. “No.”

Kaeya interjects. “The records, for the Knights, they’re incomplete—”

Jean does not listen to him. She is strong; her strength is a power he has never been on the receiving end of, not like this. She bodily pulls him from the library and into the main hall. As he stumbles, Kaeya realises he’s gripping the book in his hands, but he can’t recall picking it up. 

Jean’s voice is unfriendly. Protective. She is restrained with him, but not gentle. “This place is not for people who intend to cause trouble.” She looks over her shoulder. “Noelle, will you escort this man out of Mondstadt?”

“I’m your Cavalry Captain,” Kaeya hisses back, frustration taking over his voice as he waves the book. “Look, I don’t understand why, but my name is written here, and—”

It is not his friend, nor the Acting Grand Master who turns to face him. It is the Lionfang Knight, and she is furious. “I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before. You are clearly unstable, so I won’t take any action against you, but you need to leave. Go home. Take that blank book with you.”

Blank. Kaeya tries to open it to check, but Jean doesn’t give him the chance. He’s lifted, practically carried out of the Headquarters and onto the streets.

Go home. It echoes off the insides of Kaeya’s head as they drag him through the streets of Mondstadt. He gazes overhead, and there are WINDMILLS SPINNING, SPINNING, SPINNING.

He’s not going crazy.

Go home.

This is his home, isn’t it? Clean, fresh air? The Mondstadt breeze? The City of Freedom?

He has to break the loop— he’s not going crazy— that book was not blank— he’s not going crazy—

Kaeya is shoved out the gates and Swan firmly bars his way back in. “Orders direct from the Acting Grand Master. You are a threat to the safety of Mondstadt, strange, disrespectful traveller. Leave, and go home.”

Kaeya looks up at Lawrence, at the way he watches Kaeya like a stranger. He knows Lawrence very well. The man has never shaken the shadow of his name, has always felt it keeps him apart from everyone in Mondstadt. He’s overcompensated for it his entire career—tried to be the best of them because his name evokes the worst. 

Kaeya opens his mouth to say this, but all that comes out is a soft plea. “I’m Kaeya.”

“Is that name supposed to mean anything to me?”

There is frost at his fingertips, anguish a raging roar within him, and ice all around before Kaeya can stop to think. He summons a shield, rotating around him in shards of crystalline ice. His vision is full of flecks of pale blue and refracted light from the overcast sky. He pushes past the guards who cannot break it, cannot pierce it.

They do not hold Visions, so there is no way they can stop him. He steps through them. He does not pay attention to the screams, to the shock. There are footsteps all around him. Something bounces off the shield and he feels a vibration in the air as it ricochets. He does not look. He just keeps walking.

Go home.

He does.

Kaeya rips off his eyepatch as he slams his door shut and drops the book onto his desk. He stares unblinking at his reflection in the mirror. He looks the same, he’d swear it. He hasn’t changed. He smooths at the unkempt strands of his mussed hair, at the bags under his eyes from the night before. He wipes at the blood from his chewed-raw lip. He’s the same as always.

The book. It’s a realisation like a diverted river, like a new neural pathway—everything suddenly clicks into place and Kaeya knows how it ends.

He doesn’t even have to read it. It’s the only ending that makes any sense. Childe is the new variable, he is the only reason people could be forgetting Kaeya. It’s him.

If Childe is the reason the time loop is happening, the only way to stop it is—

Childe always comes with the rain. Kaeya waits all night, unmoving, anticipating the moment the clouds will grow heavy and the sky will open with an inevitable downpour. He has to break the loop. He stays motionless, his own voice a rhythmic comfort. He’s not going crazy.

His patience is rewarded. A new day dawns, the whole world darkens, and this time Kaeya does not bring a cloak.

The rain comes down like a living thing, in sheets that crash all around him, in pulses like some monstrous heartbeat. He’s drenched immediately. Kaeya tilts his head up to the sky with forced-shut eyes and lets it mask the shivery, lost sound that he breathes. 

The need to find Childe consumes him. It expands to press against every secret internal part of him. For a moment, for a traitorous moment, he wonders if the change is permanent. If they’ll never remember him again.

The roaring ache of Kaeya’s heart in his ears and the rhythmic pound of the rain on his skin are all that he can feel. He wishes for it to wash him away entirely, break him down to the smallest of his pieces and scatter him to the four winds. No one knows him. He’s nothing. He’s no one. He’s all alone.

What difference would it make if he truly did disappear? If no one remembered him ever again?

No one would miss him. Oh. Archons, that thought hurts. Kaeya doesn’t stop the warm prickle at his eyes, doesn’t hold back the tears when they come. It’s all water on his face, and there is no one to shame him for his misery.

If the man Childe knew really existed, if he was ever real, did he feel this way? Was this how he became such a monster? 

Did anyone miss him?

Kaeya drops his head and opens his eyes. The rainwater cascades from his hair down onto his outstretched hands like a torrent. It seeps through his fingers like the weight of his life. It’s all nothing.

He hears Childe’s voice in his mind as if the man is standing beside him now. “          , you are my most beloved.”

If he becomes the man Childe knew, if he sheds the skin of this Kaeya, could he have at least this one, small thing? The affection and attention of at least one other person?

It bleeds through him in a startled impulse, a runaway decision that Kaeya does not have an opportunity to rationalise. He’s standing in the rain one moment, his entire life slipping away, and in the next he’s walking, icicles sharp as a blade already forming in his hands.

Childe is standing in the middle of the bridge. The rain is heavy, but he is dry. He doesn’t look like he belongs where he stands, as if he is superimposed upon the image Kaeya’s eye is processing, some infection of the impulses between his retina and his brain.

“Come,           , you’re almost there now.” Childe’s hand is outstretched.

Kaeya approaches in silence, and Childe’s smile grows fond. “You’ve had a rather lively round this time, don’t you think?” 

Kaeya does not answer. He does not say a word. He grips the icy-smooth of his daggers, and he leans in close and intimate to the only man who remembers him in all the world. The blade slides between the folds of that grey suit as if Kaeya was dipping them into water, and Childe’s eyes go wide. For a moment, he looks horrified, betrayed, shocked. Then Kaeya blinks, and he’s smirking, pulling Kaeya in for an icy kiss that tastes of blood and bile, bite-sharp and licking deep. He twists the knives, and Childe breathes a sound of purest rapture into his mouth as he collapses. 

Kaeya falls to his knees with the weight of his body and pulls his weapons from the gushing stab wounds. “Ah, so you do remember our little games,” Childe whispers, amazed, his gentle hand tracing Kaeya’s jaw and chin. “My love, my             —”

He looks up at Kaeya with only worship in his dead, cold eyes. He smiles as if the sight of Kaeya is the only thing he has ever wanted to see in the world. 

In an instant, Kaeya regrets— 

It feels wrong. His blood on Kaeya's hands feels wrong. And Childe—

Childe dies in Kaeya's arms with a shuddering, gentle sigh.

Immediately, Kaeya is struck with a sensation of falling, of a vertigo so powerful it wrenches at his stomach and forces him to bend over the corpse in his lap. He tumbles forward, and he’s falling into the dark, and—

He’s in the middle of Mondstadt, staring down at his blood-soaked hands. He’s breathing hard as his eye adjusts to the blinding sunlight above.

“Oh, dear!” He hears, and turns to see Sara calling out to him, with a suppressed chuckle behind her concern. “Are you alright, Sir Kaeya?”

He looks down at his hands, blood-wet, and he blinks, and they are clean.

“Do you need a coffee?” Sara asks, and something inside him pulls shiver-tight. Something inside him breaks.

He giggles.