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There are new faces at the tavern when Kaeya comes in.
He notices immediately, because it's the sort of thing that he comes here for. He knows all the faces around here, knows their families, knows what they do for a living and what strings he'd need to pull to make them never step foot in Mondstadt again. A lot of people think Kaeya is always at the tavern because he's an alcoholic - which is a fair point, he very well might be - but he's here for a lot more than that.
He's here because he knows first hand what it means to be a liar, and the tavern loosens even the most dangerous of tongues.
And today, there are faces here that he doesn't recognize.
It annoys him, because he's tired today.
More tired than usual.
For once, he just wanted a drink and to have pleasant and minimum conversation and then to go back to headquarters and take a nice long nap.
But of course, there are strangers here instead.
Just two, but it's still enough to alert him. They're both foreigners, the man clearly from Inazuma, and the girl he assumes to be from Liyue, with spiky black hair and a cheerful smile.
They both look harmless, chatting happily with Venti over drinks - they seem to be talking about music or something. Venti for once doesn't appear drunk himself, more interested in talking about his latest composition.
It's suspicious, because for one - Venti almost always sits directly at the bar. He isn't one to chat with other customers.
And for another - it's even rarer for him to not be drunk.
Kaeya walks towards the bar himself, trying to calculate how to play this.
He could go over to the table as well. It would go over smoothly - in anyone's eyes, he'd just be joining a good friend of his and welcoming strangers to the city. He'd draw their story out of them in no time, figure if they're dangerous or not, and then he'd be back on his way, a knight with the pressing need to go back to his duties.
On any other day, Kaeya would have joined them immediately.
But today it's harder to take that step. It's been harder to fake his smiles. He's exhausted, and he really hadn't predicted having to come over to this today.
He just wanted a drink.
Maybe he'll get one, just give himself five minutes, and then he'll join the group. That should work. He can make it look like he hadn't noticed them until then. By the way Venti is going on, he won't be letting them leave any time soon - Kaeya has time.
A bit of it.
Just a short break.
"Sir Kaeya!" Charles says pleasantly. He's such a good man, Kaeya is relieved he's the one here today. He doesn't have the energy to have to talk to Diluc right now. "What would you like today?"
"A death after noon, please, Charles," Kaeya says, resting his chin on a hand. "It's been a long day."
"Ah," Charles says, taking a glass out and starting to mix the drink expertly. "I heard the abyss order has been acting out lately."
Kaeya's smile quirks in amusement, because that's no information any normal bartender would have. But they continue pretending that Kaeya doesn't know that the head of the establishment is the Dark Knight Hero anyway.
"Yes, they're getting pretty bold," he says. He glances at the table with the foreigners, as if first noticing them. "Oh? We have visitors?"
"Yes, they've been here a while," Charles says. "Musicians, the both of them. From what I could make out they're on vacation."
He pushes the finished drink towards him, and Kaeya takes it gratefully. He lifts it to his mouth and instantly it feels like relief.
"Vacation, hm," he says, twirling his glass between his fingers to keep himself from dunking the whole thing in one go. He has appearances to keep around here. "Mondstadt does seem like the only place you can still come to for a vacation."
Charles snorts at that.
Kaeya takes another sip of his drink.
"I should probably welcome them to the city," Kaeya muses.
"Master Diluc was here earlier," Charles says, and it almost sounds gentle. "He gave them quite the welcome already."
Kaeya's shoulders slump in relief.
He pretends not to see the knowing look Charles gives him.
If Diluc had been here, it means he would have monitored the situation already. If he'd left after that, it means there really isn't a threat here. These are genuinely two visitors here for a vacation.
Kaeya doesn't have anything to do here then. He can enjoy his drink, and be on his way. He doesn't need to talk to a single soul.
It shouldn't make him feel this relieved.
He finishes his drink off, sets his glass on the counter. "Could you pour me another, Charles?"
Charles does without comment.
/
The strangers don't seem to show any sign of leaving.
To be fair, neither does Kaeya.
Two drinks turn to three, to four, to five. He's more than a little tipsy, and he's pretty sure if he closes his eyes he'll fall asleep instantly, but the thought of having to walk all the way to his room just makes him drink more to forget about it for longer.
He sort of wishes Rosaria comes by, so that she'll at least distract him from how tired he is, but she must be off on her own secret missions because she never shows up.
He's drumming his fingers on the table, wondering if he should order another glass or if that'll be the last straw that alerts Charles that this is not one of his good days. He doesn't want that because then he'll have a closer eye on him for the next few days, and even worse - Diluc will have a closer eye on him for the next few days. Which means Kaeya will have to consciously drink less, which means he'll be in a worse mood -
Shit, maybe he really is an alcoholic.
He's thinking furiously, trying to figure out if another glass is worth it or not when someone sinks into the stool next to him.
Kaeya doesn't look up, still staring at his glass, but he can tell by the fabric that peeks into his peripheral vision.
It's the man from Inazuma. The stranger.
"Excuse me," the man says to Charles, terribly polite. "Could I have a glass of grape juice?"
Kaeya blinks.
He looks at the man incredulously.
The man doesn't seem to notice, leaning on one hand on the bar, smiling pleasantly at Charles as he starts to pour his drink.
And yes, Kaeya shouldn't judge him, and shouldn't want to offend someone who's just here on vacation, but he's had too many drinks and sort of wants another and judgment isn't doing great on his side today.
"Ahh, a new face!" he says, tilting his head to give the man a grin. He knows it's a mistake once he does it, he really should have just gone back home. "I see you share Master Diluc's tastes, yes?"
"Master Diluc?" the man says, as if trying to remember something. "Ah, yes, he'd told me to try it."
"Pshh," Kaeya says, with all the maturity of a cavalry captain. "Diluc may run this establishment, but his tastes are questionable at most. Now this," he pushes his glass forward, forgetting that it's empty. "This is the true taste of Mondstadt."
The man blinks at the empty glass.
Kaeya realizes his mistake.
"It was," he corrects. "I drank it."
The man nods, but Kaeya can see the amusement in his eyes. To save face he shoves his hand out for a handshake.
"I'm Kaeya," he says. "Knights of Favonius. A pleasure to meet you."
"Kaedehara Kazuha," the man says, taking his hand. "It's nice to meet you too, sir...?"
"Captain," Kaeya says easily.
"Captain," Kazuha corrects as well.
"Charles," Kaeya decides, realizing he's found the perfect excuse, "Another death after noon, please."
Charles gives him a calculated look, which Kaeya recognizes as worry. "Are you sure, Captain Kaeya? You've had quite a bit today."
He's so much more polite than Diluc. Diluc would have stared him down and said something nasty about the knights.
Kaeya gives him another smile. "I want to show my friend here what the best of Mond is like," he says. He turns back to Kazuha. "What do you say? Would you like to try a death after noon?"
"The name sounds foreboding," Kazuha says, but there's far too much interest in his eyes. "I'd like to try it, yes."
Kaeya turns back to Charles, his grin more natural now. "Two death after noons, please."
Charles shakes his head, enough for Kaeya to tell that he hasn't truly gotten away with it - he'll probably tattle to Diluc, and Kaeya is going to have to watch his drinking for the next week, but -
It's fine. It's fine.
He'll drink as much as he can today to make up for it.
/
Kazuha talks a lot.
Kaeya finds it a little funny, how easily he tells his whole story just one glass in. To be fair, he must have had his own share of alcohol sitting at Venti's table, this must have finally tipped him over the edge.
He talks, and talks, and Kaeya listens, quietly ordering more alcohol for himself and not meeting the judgement in Charles' eyes.
Apparently Kazuha wasn't on vacation. He was, but not from home. He was on vacation from a country he didn't live in, and on the run from his real home. He'd been welcomed back recently but wasn't eager to return, and was roaming cities instead.
"You ran from Inazuma to Liyue?" Kaeya asks curiously, taking a sip of his drink. It's not unheard of, the ports of Liyue are the easiest place to reach for escapees, but it isn't often that the escapees decide to stay there. Liyue is a difficult place to move to, sometimes hostile to newcomers, and the bulk of those who had run from the reign of terror in Inazuma had finally found homes in Mondstadt.
"I'm not often on land," Kazuha admits. "I sail with Captain Beidou."
"A sailor," Kaeya muses. It reminds him of a long forgotten, childish dream to be a pirate. It had started as a joke but ended up as something he actually found himself wanting, in moments of weakness.
It must be nice, to belong to no country at all.
In a way, Kaeya doesn't, but he has loyalties torn in too many directions that it feels more suffocating than free.
"That must be nice," he says, almost to himself.
Kazuha catches it anyway. "It is."
"You don't miss home?"
Kazuha considers it. He considers it for a moment too long, frowning like he hasn't let himself think about it in a while.
"I don't," he says finally. "I don't think about things that are over."
He takes another long sip of his drink, and Kaeya watches in him with something unsettled in his chest.
I don't think about things that are over.
If only Kaeya could say the same.
/
By the time Charles cuts him off, Kaeya is far, far too drunk for a work day.
His only consolation is that Kazuha isn't any better off.
He's half asleep with his head on the bar, smiling in something like content. It's such an odd expression, to be smiling to yourself. Kaeya doesn't do things like that. He smiles when someone is there to see it, and when no one is he drinks more.
But Kazuha is smiling to himself, tapping his glass with a finger, like he's never had a home and yet he can get drunk and be happy about it.
Kaeya doesn't understand.
"What do you want to do then?" he asks, out of nowhere.
Kazuha blinks. "Hm?"
"If you never go back home. What keeps you going?"
The smile on his face fades a little as he considers the question. "What keeps me going?" he asks again, like he's never really thought about it.
To be honest, Kaeya isn't sure what keeps him going either.
Just that he's made it this far and it seems like a waste to stop.
He's made promises to too many people, on too many sides, and all that keeps him going is that he should see it through now that he's still here.
Without the people he knows, the people he works for - Kaeya doesn't think he'd want to do anything at all.
He'd probably just get drunk.
"I like starting over," Kazuha says at last.
"Starting over?"
"Yes. Every time you leave somewhere, you get to start over. You get to be someone else in someplace new, and then you leave again."
"Spoken like a true son of the ocean," Kaeya says, raising his empty glass in a toast. "Aren't you lonely?"
"I don't think I am," Kazuha says slowly. "Are you?"
Kaeya laughs the question off.
Of course he's lonely.
Kaeya thinks he's always been.
"You seem like someone who runs too," Kazuha says. "But you've never left, have you?"
The words hit him harder than he expects.
It's true, Kaeya is a runner.
His grip tightens on his empty glass as he brings it to his lips.
He's run his entire life. But he's never had a place to go. He runs, and runs, and runs, and never leaves the place he's started.
Still lonely, still on his own, still trapped in place.
"I've never left," he says.
"You should," Kazuha says, too honest. "It's okay to run. It's okay to be running away forever, even. But you have to be going somewhere."
/
When Kaeya wakes up, he's still in the tavern.
He's passed out at the bar, face pillowed on his arm. His fingers are still clutched around an empty glass. His head pounds like hell, he shouldn't have woken up. He should have died in his sleep.
The tavern is empty. Kazuha is nowhere to be seen. The only sound is the clinking of dishes from somewhere on Kaeya's blind side, probably Charles cleaning up after the day.
"You're up," a voice says, and Kaeya stiffens.
It isn't Charles.
It's Diluc.
"What time is it," Kaeya asks.
"It's four in the morning," Diluc deadpans. "You've quite overstayed your welcome."
"You could've woken me up," Kaeya grumbles, because he doesn't want to be in a room with Diluc at four in the morning either.
"Believe me, I tried," Diluc says.
Kaeya pushes himself up.
"Did the tourists leave?" he asks, even though the tavern is clearly empty.
"They're on a trip with the traveller," Diluc says. "They left a couple of hours ago to get some sleep."
It stings a bit that Kazuha didn't say goodbye, but then again, Kaeya must have been impossible to wake if even Diluc couldn't manage it.
He doesn't make any move to leave, staring at the dishes that Diluc is wiping down instead.
You've never left, have you?
To be honest, Kaeya doesn't know why he hasn't.
He gives himself a lot of excuses, about how he's here for a reason, to protect and to betray, to keep the enemy at a distance while being one of them himself. He says Mondstadt is his home, that he's made promises, that the city is his family.
But that's not the truth, it's just a hope.
He's hoped, all his life, that if he stays for long enough, the city will love him back.
That he'll belong to an archon who massacred Kaeya's real home.
That one day Diluc see him in his tavern and not immediately want him gone.
They're all just hopes, and Kaeya runs from them, and then ends right back here, in the tavern, because he never learns from his mistakes.
What would happen, really, if he left?
Would it change anything?
Sometimes Kaeya thinks he only stays because he's scared that he was never as important to this war as he made himself out to be.
He's afraid that all the years he spent here, trying to earn love as a traitor - they all meant nothing.
A plan that failed before it was even put into action.
A waste of a life.
Abandoned for no reason.
You've never left, have you?
"Will they be back?" Kaeya asks abruptly.
Diluc gives him a curious look. "I'd expect them to be."
"Alright," Kaeya says, pushing himself to stand. He stumbles for a moment, embarrassingly, but then he straightens up and slaps a handful of coins on the bar.
Diluc is still staring at him.
"Let me know when they're back," Kaeya says.
"Why?"
"You don't need to know."
"You're planning something."
"I'm always planning something."
Diluc frowns, but doesn't push him further, averting his eyes back to dishes that he was wiping.
Kaeya pushes the door of the tavern open.
He's done this a hundred times, and yet he always comes back. Over, and over, and over.
This time he steps outside, and lets himself imagine that he never returns. That he walks away forever. Away from this city, away from the place he's tried for too long and too hard to carve into a home.
Kaeya knows he'll be back, but just for a moment he pretends.
/