Archive of Our Own

1. The Time Kaeya Called Him ‘Pretty Boy’ in Front of the Knights (and Meant It)

Albedo was not unused to being observed. A man who regularly drew in blood and ink, dissected life and death under a lens, and painted landscapes with enough precision to make clouds weep—such a man ought to be comfortable under scrutiny. And he was.

Usually.

But today, he was not under the gaze of Celestia or microscope, nor beneath the cool indifference of the mountain winds.

He was under Kaeya’s gaze.

Which, unfortunately, was a thing entirely unto itself.

“Chief Alchemist,” Kaeya purred, boots clicking over the marble of the Knights’ headquarters like a cat too confident in its own charm, “or should I say, pretty boy with a brain like dynamite.”

Albedo froze mid-signature. He could feel the weight of every single eye in the room swivel toward him. A flock of secretaries stilled mid-scroll. One Knight blinked and ran into the doorframe. Sucrose dropped a vial that fizzled weakly on the floor and began to emit smoke in a rather upsetting shade of pink.

“I—”

Kaeya leaned, ever so slightly, over the desk. His elbow rested beside Albedo’s report, and his gloved fingers tapped against the paper like he was playing some dangerous game of percussion with Albedo’s pulse. “What? Too formal? I was going to go with ‘devastatingly handsome genius,’ but I thought I’d save that one for our wedding.”

Albedo made a strangled noise that was definitely not scientific in nature.

He cleared his throat, twice, and then tried to level Kaeya with his usual cool stare — the one that could disarm a Hilichurl and inspire entire monographs on the thermodynamics of slime mutation. But Kaeya just smirked like he was waiting for Albedo to say something truly filthy.

Which—and this was a horrible fact of his existence—he nearly did.

Instead, he said, in what he hoped was a voice devoid of breathlessness: “You’re blocking my ink.”

Kaeya, unbothered, leaned closer. “Am I? Should I move? Or would you prefer I spill something on you, so you’ll have a reason to change shirts?”

Sucrose made a noise like she was being choked by her own lungs.

“Cavalry Captain,” Albedo said stiffly, “you’re disrupting my work.”

Kaeya’s grin widened. “Then let me make it up to you. Dinner. Wine. Candlelight. We can discuss your… workload.”

That was it. That was the moment.

Albedo, universally regarded as the most composed person in Mondstadt (some said in Teyvat), turned bright pink from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears. A slow, blossoming flush crept like vines up his cheeks, trailing in its wake a constellation of embarrassment.

Kaeya blinked—and then, strangely, softened.

“You’re adorable,” he said quietly, like it was a secret between them and the rest of the room was made of fog.

Albedo turned to ice. He shoved the report toward Kaeya with a too-quick flick of the wrist, nearly knocking over his own quill in the process. “Take this to Acting Grand Master Jean. And consider ceasing your nonsense in front of junior staff.”

Kaeya raised both brows. “In private then? Duly noted.”

Albedo stood. “Out.”

Kaeya winked. “Of course, pretty boy.”

And then he was gone, out the door with a whoosh of cape and a smell like cold spice and forest dusk, leaving Albedo staring at the empty air where he had been, expression absolutely thunderstruck.

Sucrose, very bravely, whispered, “Are you… okay?”

Albedo inhaled slowly through his nose and said, with all the dignity of a man who’d just had his brain folded like an origami swan, “Fine.”

He was not fine.

He was ruined.

2. The Time Kaeya Caught Him Sketching Him Shirtless in the Snow (And Was Way Too Pleased About It)

It began—as these things often did—with scientific intent.

That’s what Albedo would swear, even in the face of divine judgment or worse, Kaeya’s knowing smirk.

He was merely conducting an observational study. Documenting the effects of prolonged Cryo exposure on muscular tissue. A straightforward inquiry. Logical. Clinical. Rigorous. Definitely not about Kaeya’s abs.

Not even a little.

…Okay, maybe a little.

Kaeya had volunteered, of course. No hesitation. No questions. Just a wolfish grin and the immediate, reckless removal of three layers of clothing as if it were some sort of ritual sacrifice to the gods of thirst and hubris.

Albedo hadn’t even asked him to fully undress.

But Kaeya, as always, had gone above and beyond.

“I want your data to be thorough, Albedo,” he said, all faux-innocence as he shrugged off his coat and dropped it in the snow like a gauntlet. “Wouldn’t want to compromise the integrity of the experiment.”

“You’re going to compromise your lungs,” Albedo snapped, refusing to look directly at the man now lounging shirtless against an ice-crusted boulder like some sultry spirit of winter seduction.

Kaeya just laughed, deep and rich, like brandy and sin. “Relax. My lungs are used to worse things than the cold.” Then he winked. “Like your lectures.”

Albedo looked at him—really looked, just to glare—and regretted everything immediately.

Kaeya’s skin was moonlit bronze, lit by the soft blue ambient glow of nearby Cryo crystals. Snow dusted his shoulders, melting slowly down his chest. His collarbone was absurd. His waist was unfairly narrow. The criss-crossing of scars, fine and white like strokes of chalk, only made it worse. He looked like a tragic romantic hero painted in oil: gorgeous, wounded, and entirely too aware of it.

Albedo’s pencil snapped.

Kaeya raised a brow. “Do I get to know what that sketch is going to be titled? Subject A, Shirtless and Smoldering? Or perhaps something more poetic. ‘Thaw.’”

Albedo’s voice cracked in a way he was not proud of. “You are not the subject of poetry.”

Kaeya, undeterred, leaned forward, propping one arm across his knee. “You’ve written about worse things. Slimes. Ruin guards. Birds.”

“Birds are vital to ecological—”

“—but not nearly as captivating as, say…” Kaeya tilted his head, deliberately flexing. “This.”

Albedo went red. Full alchemical emergency-level red. He turned back to his sketchpad with the furious determination of a man hiding from his own mortality. Or possibly his own libido. It was a fine line.

But despite his best efforts, his hand betrayed him.

The pencil danced. Lines curled and looped with obsessive precision, sketching the elegant cut of Kaeya’s hipbone where it sloped into snow-damp pants. The sharp architecture of his ribs. The impossible softness of his mouth. He even shaded in the little indent just below Kaeya’s throat, the one Albedo hated himself for noticing.

Kaeya’s voice interrupted the fugue state. “You’re very focused.”

“You’re distracting,” Albedo hissed, refusing to look up.

A long pause. Then, lightly:

“You know, you could touch me.”

The graphite tip halted mid-curve.

“What?” Albedo said, and if the snow hadn’t already been freezing, the chill in his tone would have dropped the ambient temperature five degrees.

Kaeya smiled, slow and unapologetic. “Purely for scientific purposes, of course. If you’re sketching muscles under Cryo duress, you’ll want to feel the texture. The resistance. The heat underneath the chill.”

Albedo’s brain broke clean in half.

“I am not groping you for data,” he managed, flustered as a first-year knight stumbling into the dressing quarters.

Kaeya laughed—too loud, too delighted, too sinful—and flopped dramatically back in the snow like some doomed Romantic poet. “Ah, but how tragic. A missed opportunity for tactile enlightenment.”

Albedo gave in and looked up—only to find Kaeya gazing at him, unguarded now. A little too open. A little too raw. Blue eye half-lidded, lazy smile curling up at the corners like fire licking the edge of a letter you were afraid to read.

There was something unbearable in that expression.

Not desire. Or not just desire.

Admiration. Fondness. Adoration, maybe.
Like Kaeya wasn’t just being flirtatious or teasing. Like he meant it.

And that was infinitely worse.

Albedo’s breath hitched. He slammed his sketchbook shut and stood so fast he startled a snow hare half a field away.

“That’s enough for today.”

Kaeya, blinking, sat up. “Did I ruin it?”

Albedo’s voice was high, strained, practically strangled. “Yes.”

Kaeya tilted his head. “Should I apologize?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Albedo hesitated.

Which was all the answer Kaeya needed.

He stood and took a step forward, and then another, boots crunching in the snow. He was still shirtless, which should have been a crime, honestly—or at the very least a violation of Albedo’s personal boundaries. Or his scientific objectivity. Or his sanity.

When Kaeya was close enough to fog Albedo’s glasses—if he wore glasses, which thank the Archons he didn’t—he leaned down and said, very softly:

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Albedo turned away and began walking very quickly back to camp, snow flying in little panicked flurries with every step.

Kaeya called after him: “You forgot your sketchbook!”

“Leave it!”

“Why? Does it contain your love confession?”

“Shut up!”

“Is that a yes?”

“I will throw you off this mountain.”

Kaeya’s laughter echoed through the icy ravine, golden and echoing and entirely pleased with himself.

Later, alone in his tent, Albedo looked through the sketch again. He’d crushed it slightly in his rush, but Kaeya’s face was still perfect—warm eyes, sly smirk, the ghost of a dimple.

He traced it with the tip of his pencil. Then scrawled one word in the corner, very small.

“Thaw.”

3. The Time Kaeya Read Albedo’s Journal Out Loud and Albedo Nearly Ascended from Sheer Embarrassment

Albedo had a system.

He labeled his notebooks with extreme precision:
Formulae – Cryo reactions – experimental, not verified – Vol. VIII.
Glider lift ratios (control group: Amber) – wind current stability – Vol. III.
Thoughts. Private. Do not open. Seriously, Kaeya, if this is you: stop reading. I will know.

Kaeya, naturally, had opened that last one first.

Not out of malice. Out of mischief. (Which, for Kaeya, was just another word for curiosity with less guilt.)

To his mild surprise and overwhelming amusement, the "private" volume was not full of scandalous drawings or handwritten fanfiction involving Lisa and Harbingers (which he had once caught Bennett writing, bless his innocent soul).

No—it was worse.

It was full of feelings.
Albedo’s feelings.

Worse yet: feelings about him.

It happened one rainy afternoon in the library. Jean had ordered a full day of indoor rest due to a surprise lightning storm fraying the edge of Mondstadt’s cliffs and singeing several gliders. Albedo had gone off to check on an experiment in the basement, and Kaeya, bored and damp and too restless to nap, had gone to bother him.

Except Albedo wasn’t there.

His things were, though. Neatly stacked. A set of open journals scattered across a desk like discarded thoughts mid-bloom. And Kaeya—like a crow to shiny things or a bard to trouble—was drawn to them.

He spotted the familiar notebook right away.

Black cover. Sharp script on the spine. A smear of green pigment near the edge from when Albedo had tested sap viscosity the week before. The one with the threat scrawled on the front like a challenge:

Seriously, Kaeya, if this is you: stop reading. I will know.

Kaeya grinned.

“Sweetheart,” he said to the empty desk, “you give me too much credit.”

And opened it.

At first it was fairly harmless.

Page one was a list of the seven different smiles Kaeya had, and Albedo’s attempt to name and categorize them.
"Smirk (smug) – used when teasing me."
"Half-smile (genuine) – often appears during festivals or when helping children."
"Crooked grin (ambiguous) – appears after sparring, may indicate a mild concussion."

Kaeya chuckled, flattered. “So you do notice.”

Page two included a sketch of his eye, just his eye, lovingly rendered in pen and watercolor with the kind of obsessive attention to detail that bordered on scandalous. Notes beside it read:

“Unique crystalline structure. Impossible hue. Likely irreplicable via pigment. Will attempt again with lapis dust mixed into ink.”

He turned the page.

That’s when things went from flattering to… something else.

“Kaeya’s voice is… distracting. (This is an understatement.) The phenomenon is difficult to record. It is not merely tone, though it fluctuates between drawling and sharp with impressive control. It’s something in the cadence. The taste. The suggestion. As though every sentence he speaks is a flirtation, even when it is about soup.”

“Today he said, ‘Mind if I borrow your lips for a hypothesis?’ and I forgot my own name for ten full seconds.”

Kaeya laughed out loud. “Gods, I remember that. You knocked over your tea.”

He kept reading.

“The worst part is the dreams. They're not even that explicit. They're just… soft. His hand on my shoulder. The weight of his head in my lap. The warmth of his laugh against my throat. Every morning I wake up and feel like I’ve committed a crime against logic itself.”

“I am not in love. Probably. Possibly. This may be scientific curiosity. I may be… chemically confused.”

“...but if he calls me ‘sweetheart’ again, I will either perish or pin him to the nearest surface.”

Kaeya choked.

“Albedo,” he whispered, scandalized. “You little menace.”

Naturally, that was the exact moment Albedo walked in.

His coat was soaked with rain. His hair clung damply to his cheekbones. His expression was calm and neutral — until he saw what Kaeya was holding.

There was a pause.

Then:

“Oh no.”

Kaeya turned around, notebook still in his hands, wearing the most dramatic expression of betrayal imaginable. “You lied to me.”

Albedo blinked, dazed, his fingers twitching like he was deciding whether to grab the notebook or stab Kaeya with the nearest quill. “What—?”

“You said you didn’t write poetry. You said you weren’t sentimental.” Kaeya flipped the journal open to the eye sketch and pressed it to his chest like a swooning lover. “And yet here I find pages upon pages of emotional vulnerability, raw yearning, and… dare I say it… desire.”

Albedo made a horrible sound. Like an alchemical flask exploding.

“Give me that.”

Kaeya lifted it over his head.

Albedo lunged.

Unfortunately for him, Kaeya was taller, and built like a man who regularly scaled cliffs while smiling, so the notebook remained aloft and the situation devolved rapidly into what could only be described as flirt-wrestling.

“Kaeya, give it back—!”

“Not until you admit it,” Kaeya sing-songed, dodging with infuriating grace. “Admit you’re a little in love with me and I’ll give you your dirty little science diary.”

“I am not—!” Albedo stopped, panting, cornered against a bookcase, flushed to his ears. He looked so wrecked Kaeya almost dropped the act entirely. Almost.

Kaeya leaned in.

Their noses nearly touched. His voice dropped.

“Then what’s this?” he murmured, flipping to a random page. “‘Hypothesis: Kaeya’s laughter affects my ability to stand upright—’”

Albedo made a noise like a dying tea kettle, grabbed the book, and shoved Kaeya hard enough that he stumbled back, laughing, utterly unrepentant.

Albedo buried the notebook inside his coat. “You are,” he breathed, voice shaking, “a disaster of a human being.”

Kaeya beamed. “And you, sweetheart, are absolutely smitten.”

Albedo, for once, had no reply.

Just a face redder than after one (1) drop of dandelion wine, hands clenched like he was holding himself together molecule by molecule.

Kaeya relented. A little.

He stepped forward, gently now, voice soft.

“Hey.”

Albedo didn’t look up.

Kaeya touched his shoulder. “Just so you know—if I were keeping a journal, you’d be in it too.”

Albedo finally glanced up, startled.

Kaeya smiled, less teasing now. “And not just your brain or your pretty sketches. You. The way you mumble to yourself when you’re mixing potions. The way you smell like charcoal and pine sap. The way your face scrunches when I say something ridiculous.”

Pause.

“I like you. That wasn’t exactly classified data.”

Albedo stared.

Then, too quiet: “You weren’t supposed to read that.”

Kaeya shrugged. “Then don’t write such excellent prose about my voice.”

Albedo shoved him. Kaeya laughed. And somewhere—between the fluster and the thunder outside—something soft settled between them like the last page of a very slow confession finally turning.

4. The Time Kaeya Accidentally Called Albedo ‘Darling’ In Front of the Entire Ordo Favonius, and Albedo Forgot How Language Worked

There were many things Albedo could face without flinching.

Explosions.
Daemons.
Bennett’s “luck.”
Diluc in a foul mood.
Kaeya in a worse one.

But what he could not, apparently, handle—what rendered him functionally useless for an entire thirty minutes—was one word. One slip of the tongue, muttered in Kaeya’s usual silken baritone in front of the entire Knights of Favonius.

One “darling.”

It began with a meeting.

It always began with a meeting.

Some crisis or another—slimes mutating in Windrise, Hilichurl tribes migrating out of season, even something as mundane as a misreported shipment of herbs—always ended with half the Knightly leadership crammed around Jean’s long table, sipping coffee and trying not to start wars with their facial expressions.

Albedo was sitting in his usual seat, posture impeccable, notes in hand, doodling vaguely in the margins of the incident report. Across from him sat Kaeya, slouched with the ease of someone who had never once experienced shame or back pain.

Kaeya had already gotten a lecture for being late. Jean had done her best not to sound exasperated. Lisa looked amused. Amber, per usual, tried to mediate by offering Kaeya a cookie. Kaeya had bitten into it like it was a peace treaty. All seemed normal.

Until the very end of the meeting.

Jean had been recapping orders. “Albedo, we’ll need you to oversee the environmental tests on the spore samples—”

“Already accounted for,” Albedo said, pen tapping. “I’ve scheduled three preliminary tests using two isolated environments, as well as one control group—”

“Of course you have,” Jean said, with a tired smile.

“Lisa, I’ll need access to the upper archives—”

“You’ll have it by sundown.”

“Kaeya, would you mind assisting Albedo on his trip to Windrise? The spores are Cryo-sensitive, and your input—”

Kaeya gave a mock bow from his chair. “Anything for my darling.”

Dead silence.

Absolute, universe-stopping, cathedral-hushed silence.

Albedo did not register it at first.

He heard the word. He understood the syllables. His brain parsed it as sound.

But then… then it hit.

Kaeya had called him darling. Not in the dark, not in private, not in the sultry hush of some hallway banter—but in public. In front of the entire council.

Albedo froze.

He did not blush.

He erupts.

The flush hit him so hard it felt radioactive. Neck to scalp, ears to fingertips—every inch of his body was suddenly aware that he was made of skin, and that his skin was on fire.

His pen fell from his hand.

“Albedo?” Jean asked, blinking. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine. I’m just—he said—he said—”

Kaeya, absolutely unbothered, tilted his head. “Is something wrong, sweetheart?”

Albedo made a sound that could only be described as a soft system failure.

Amber’s eyes sparkled like she was watching a live-action romance novel.

Lisa smiled behind her hand and murmured, “My, my.”

“Kaeya,” Albedo hissed under his breath. “Why.”

Kaeya, still reclined, looked the very picture of innocent inquiry. “Why what, darling?”

“I—You—That’s—You can’t just—”

“Call you darling?”

Albedo slapped both hands to his face like a schoolgirl in a dramatic opera. “Stop saying it.”

“Why?” Kaeya leaned forward now, elbows on the table, voice velvet-wrapped. “Don’t you like it?”

“Kaeya—!”

“I could try other options. Beloved? Treasure? Honeycomb?”

Lisa choked on her tea.

Kaeya grinned. “My most exquisite crystallized reaction—”

Amber gasped. “That one’s good.”

“My precious assistant of passion—”

“Kaeya,” Jean said flatly.

“Alright, alright,” Kaeya relented, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “But only because I respect the authority of this organization. And also because Albedo looks like he’s about to transcend this plane of existence.”

Later—much later—after Jean dismissed the meeting and Lisa swept Amber out with the grace of a gossip-loving goddess, Kaeya followed Albedo down a stone corridor, whistling.

Albedo walked fast.

Kaeya walked faster.

“You’re mad at me,” Kaeya said, catching up, “and I just don’t understand why.”

“You said—” Albedo fumbled for composure. “You said that word. In front of people.”

“‘Darling’?”

“Yes.”

Kaeya tilted his head. “And? You say stranger things to me during experiments.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because—because those are professional things. Scientific terms. Not—terms of endearment.”

“Ah,” Kaeya said, lips curling. “So you admit it was a term of endearment.”

Albedo opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked away.

Kaeya stepped closer.

“You like it,” he said softly.

Albedo stared at the floor. “…Maybe.”

Kaeya leaned in. His breath was warm near Albedo’s temple.

“I could call you worse things, you know. Frostbite. Snowdrop. My sexy little geo-reaction.”

Albedo made a squeak.

Kaeya laughed, backing off only slightly. “Tell you what,” he said, “you give me one pet name. Just one. And I’ll never say ‘darling’ in public again.”

Albedo hesitated.

“…Only one?” he asked.

Kaeya blinked.

“Wait. Are you negotiating for more?”

Albedo looked up at him. Cheeks pink. Voice steady.

“I’m a scientist,” he said. “I believe in fair exchange.”

Kaeya stared.

And for the first time that day—perhaps for the first time ever—Kaeya looked flustered. Just for a second. Just a flicker.

But Albedo saw it. Marked it. Tucked it away like a rare sample under glass.

He stepped closer.

“And besides,” Albedo added, a little breathlessly, “it’s only fair that I call my boyfriend something sweet too, isn’t it?”

Kaeya blinked.

“…Did you just—?”

“Yes,” Albedo said, steady now, voice low. “I did.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Unless you’d like to renegotiate that term as well.”

Kaeya stared at him. Stared at his flushed cheeks and steady voice and clenched fists. Then he grinned—not the smirk, not the swagger, but something soft and sincere and almost too much.

He reached up and brushed a thumb along Albedo’s jaw.

“You’re going to be the death of me, sweetheart.”

Albedo smiled.

“You started it.”

5. The Time They Played Truth or Dare and Regretted Everything, Especially Kaeya’s Tongue

It was Venti's fault.

Which is to say: it was everyone’s fault, but mostly Venti's. He declared they needed “team bonding” after the last mission ended in Kaeya being mildly poisoned and Albedo getting stuck in a tree (don’t ask), and somehow “team bonding” turned into “let’s get drunk at a secluded cliffside cabin and play games that will ruin our dignity.”

And so, one suspiciously well-stocked wine cart later, the inner circle of the Knights of Favonius and one drunk bard found themselves circled up on a threadbare rug with empty bottles, broken boundaries, and exactly one brain cell between them.

Venti was glowing. Lisa was lounging. Jean had already resigned herself to chaos. Kaeya had his boots off and a smirk cocked like a loaded weapon. And Albedo—

Albedo was tipsy.

Which was terrifying.

A tipsy Albedo was a strange and beautiful creature: all loosened limbs and too-long pauses, flushed cheeks, and a concerning lack of verbal filter. He'd already asked Venti if “crushes are scientifically observable phenomena” and told Jean her leadership style was “a fascinating case study in tension-based diplomacy.”

But it wasn’t until Kaeya spun the bottle and it landed on Albedo that everything went to hell.

Kaeya grinned.

Albedo blinked, slow and owlish, like an academic owl that had just been summoned into mortal peril.

“Truth or dare?” Kaeya asked.

Albedo considered. “Truth.”

The group groaned.

Kaeya leaned forward. “Alright. Tell me—when’s the last time you thought about kissing me?”

Albedo choked on his wine.

Venti dropped his bottle.

Lisa went, “Oho~?”

Jean sighed into her cup.

“That’s not fair,” Albedo spluttered, wine glass half-raised. “That’s not—it’s not scientifically framed!”

Kaeya arched a brow. “Fine. On a scale of one to ten, how badly do you want to kiss me?”

Albedo made a sound.

“Be honest,” Kaeya purred. “This is truth, after all.”

Albedo looked like he was buffering. “I—That’s—You can’t ask—”

“Come on, Albedo,” Lisa drawled. “You do want to kiss him, don’t you?”

“I—that’s not the point—”

“Oh,” Kaeya said, faux-innocent, “so you want to kiss me so badly you can’t assign it a number.”

Albedo opened his mouth.

Then shut it.

Then, softly: “…seven-point-two.”

The entire room froze.

“…Excuse me?” Kaeya said.

“Seven-point-two,” Albedo said again, a little higher-pitched. “Out of ten. With a margin of error of—of course—plus or minus zero-point-three, depending on the angle of incidence and the lighting and whether or not you’re wearing that shirt.”

Jean screamed into a pillow.

Lisa burst into laughter.

Venti reached for the wine.

Kaeya was silent for a long moment. Then he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and murmured, “And what score would I need to get you to actually do it?”

Albedo’s face went scarlet.

“That’s not how data works,” he said weakly.

Kaeya smirked. “Then I guess it’s my turn again.”

And then, in a spectacular act of cruelty that would echo through history — Kaeya spun the bottle, watched it land on Albedo again, and said:

“Dare.”

Albedo stared at him, glassy-eyed. “What?”

Kaeya leaned in, a whisper of heat, low and shameless.

“I dare you to kiss me,” he said. “Like it’s a ten.”

Albedo lunged.

They knocked over two bottles, a bowl of nuts, and Jean’s wine. Lisa shrieked. Venti clapped. But Albedo didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Because Kaeya’s mouth was right there and soft and warm and open and he tasted like sin and citrus and low, devastating laughter.

Kaeya’s hand cradled the back of his head, fingers sliding into hair. Albedo gasped, and Kaeya bit. Gently. Teasing. He sucked on Albedo’s bottom lip like it was personal. And when Albedo made a strangled little whimper, Kaeya pulled back—just an inch—and said, “Nine-point-eight?”

“Ten,” Albedo breathed.

“Thought so.”

They might have kept going—they probably would have—but Lisa coughed, and Venti howled, and Jean muttered something about needing to leave before things got x-rated.

They separated. Barely.

Kaeya’s thumb brushed the corner of Albedo’s mouth. “You’re a disaster,” he whispered.

Albedo looked dazed. “You have no idea.”

Kaeya chuckled. “I have some.”

“New hypothesis,” Albedo murmured.

“Yes?”

“If I kiss you again, I might forget what my name is.”

Kaeya grinned. “Then let’s test it.”

They kissed again. (And again. And again.)

Later, alone in the dark with wine bottles forgotten and every inch of space charged and humming, Albedo would straddle Kaeya’s lap and whisper formulas against his skin, theories in tongues, variables like sin. And Kaeya would take every equation and kiss it senseless.

But in that moment—still breathless from a stupid game—Albedo sat on the floor, drunk on Kaeya, and tried to remember how talking worked.

Kaeya leaned in and whispered, “Eleven-point-zero, sweetheart.”

Albedo shuddered.

Then laughed.

Then kissed him again.

+1. The Time Albedo Said Something So Honest Kaeya Forgot How to Breathe

It happened at sunrise.

Which Kaeya would later insist was unfair, because people were not meant to experience raw, emotional devastation before coffee. But the world—like Albedo—didn’t play fair.

They were on a mountaintop. The real one this time, not metaphorical. A real, windbitten, altitude-strangled, snow-dusted cliffside that sparkled under the early gold of morning. The storm had passed. The sky was bleeding light. Their mission was done, their camp cold, and Albedo…

…Albedo was looking at him like a problem he wanted to solve with his hands.

Kaeya was wearing three layers and still cold. Albedo was wearing two and looked untouched by wind or reason. He was holding a mug. The steam curled around his fingers. His hair was mussed from sleep. He had a smudge of ash on his cheek from last night’s fire.

And he was saying something about subzero temperatures and nerve endings and hypothermic thresholds, but Kaeya wasn’t listening.

He was watching Albedo’s mouth.

His ridiculous, perfect mouth. That precise, elegant, eloquent mouth that had once called Kaeya a “magnificent biological absurdity” and then kissed him so hard he saw stars.

And Kaeya—

Kaeya was fine. Really. Emotionally stable. Casually erect. Only a little feral.

Until Albedo said:

“I’ve realized I can’t classify how I feel about you.”

Kaeya blinked. “What?”

Albedo stared at him with the unnerving focus of a man about to dissect something.

“You’re not categorizable,” Albedo said. “Not entirely.”

“That’s… charming?” Kaeya tried. “Deeply romantic. I think.”

“It’s very inconvenient,” Albedo said.

Kaeya laughed. “You’re saying I break your brain?”

“I’m saying,” Albedo replied, eyes narrowing like a scalpel drawing a line in the dark, “that you break the laws my brain was built on.”

Kaeya opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Because Albedo looked dangerous. And soft. And impossibly serious. Like he’d spent the night rearranging every known theory of intimacy and landed on a conclusion that would shatter the world.

“Go on,” Kaeya said, throat dry.

Albedo sipped his drink. “I’ve studied attraction. I’ve dissected the chemical basis of affection. I know the neurotransmitters involved in longing. I’ve analyzed, graphed, and quantified the bodily responses to arousal in sixty-nine controlled environments—”

“Of course you have.”

“—and none of them explain you.”

Kaeya stared.

Albedo set his cup down.

“You are,” he said, like a curse, “irreducible.”

Kaeya choked. “What.”

“I’ve tried to isolate it,” Albedo went on, tone maddeningly clinical. “I thought it was your voice, at first. You have a rather… devastating timbre. But then you spoke nonsense, and I still wanted you. So I ruled that out.”

Kaeya made a strangled noise.

“Then I thought perhaps it was physical. You are,” Albedo said, blithely obscene, “very pretty. Your waist, especially. The symmetry of your thighs. I have sketches.”

“What sketches??”

“Do you want to see?”

“YES—WAIT—NO—”

Albedo smiled faintly. “I thought not.”

Kaeya was having a crisis.

Albedo was not done.

“So then I considered proximity. Perhaps I only wanted you when we were close. But that failed as well. I’ve wanted you in crowds. In libraries. In the middle of a formal dinner when you licked your thumb to turn a page. That was particularly distressing.”

Kaeya could no longer feel his face.

Albedo stepped closer.

“I considered pheromones. Emotional imprinting. Karmic echo. Magic. But nothing accounts for how you make me feel like my thoughts are scrambling over themselves to touch you. Nothing explains why when you laugh, my stomach tightens. Nothing makes sense of the way I ache when you look at me like I’m not just knowable but wanted.”

Kaeya took a step back.

Albedo followed.

Kaeya opened his mouth. Nothing came out but air.

“Kaeya,” Albedo said softly, “you make me want things I’ve never wanted before. You make me forget how much I hated not understanding things.”

Another step.

Kaeya backed into a tree.

Albedo pressed in.

“You make me irrational,” he said, voice low. “You make me hopeful. That’s the worst part.”

Kaeya swallowed. “Worse than anything else?”

“Yes,” Albedo said. “Because when I imagine us… it’s not just your mouth I want. It’s the parts of you no one else sees. The way you look away when you’re vulnerable. The way your hands twitch before you reach out. The way your voice drops when you lie.”

He was so close now Kaeya could feel every syllable against his skin.

“I want you when you’re strong,” Albedo murmured. “But I ache for you when you’re soft. When you laugh for real. When you trust me with silence.”

Kaeya’s throat bobbed.

“Say something,” Albedo whispered.

Kaeya’s mouth moved.

But his brain had left the building.

The fluster came like an avalanche: full-body, all-consuming, spectacularly inconvenient. It ripped through him like divine punishment. His ears burned. His cheeks were on fire. His breath hitched. His legs felt untrustworthy.

And all he could say, pathetically, was:

“…You’re not allowed to say things like that before breakfast.”

Albedo smiled like he’d just won a war.

“Understood,” he said.

Kaeya stared at him, wrecked. Ruined. Emotionally disrobed.

“…How many sketches?”

Albedo leaned in. His lips brushed Kaeya’s ear.

“Too many... Would you like to model for a new one?”

They were very late getting back to Mondstadt.

Lisa didn’t even bother asking.

Jean looked vaguely traumatized.

Venti congratulated them.

And Kaeya—

Kaeya never recovered.

Because Albedo had said the thing Kaeya had always believed no one could say.
Had looked at all the masks and loved him anyway.
Had seen the mess and the myth and the miracle of him—and wanted it all.

He was undone.

He was flustered.

He was in love.

And for once in his life, he didn’t want to hide it.