Venomous Flowers [ch3]

[kurecchi]

 

3.Chapter 3

(Provisory title)

Words: 5610
Prompt: There are moments that the words don't reach, there is suffering too terrible to name.

Kaeya had woken up at dawn, with the first timid rays of the sun starting to break through the semi-opaque glass of his bedroom window. He had slept discreetly, without dreams of any kind, surely helped both by fatigue and by the horrible-tasting herbal tea that Barbara had made him drink the night before.

Once he left his comfortable and cozy bed, Kaeya had moved almost guided by habit in his small apartment, dedicating himself without too many thoughts to the small personal and non chores that accompanied the routine of all his mornings. Since awakening Kaeya had only been seized by a few sporadic coughing fits which, fortunately, hadn’t been too violent. He was feeling better than he had been the day before, and while the cough occasionally made him almost spit out his lungs, nothing was going to stop him from starting his day.

He couldn't help it, because beyond the several appointments Kaeya knew he had to go to HQ to get the thought of Klee out of his mind. He had a lot of commitments, such as meeting Albedo to deliver the Door of Resurrection branch, a meeting at Cat's Tail with some informants, and even preparing the mission report from the day before and delivering it to Jean, but all those things were and would remain second plan because his priority was Klee's health.

The feelings for Kaeya were extremely complicated and obscure. In a word: 'elusive'. Because even though he understood them, they sometimes slipped away like sand between his fingers.

He remembered having started to feel something very strong and similar to 'family warmth' only when he was taken under the protective wing of Crepus Ragnvindr. Before that moment Kaeya had always lived inside a bubble because feeling affection and attachment was synonymous with weakness and death in Khaenri'ah.

The trauma and stress for those precepts that characterized his early childhood. Together with the shock of being chosen as the 'last hope' for his land, and consequently being abandoned in an unknown place, with the weight of a mission on a child's fragile shoulders. All those details had forged his personality.

An absurd life, which thanks to the Ragnvindr had improved in unexpected and surprising ways. Kaeya had begun to lower his defenses to approach a world of affection and happiness, without the constant fear of death and which had made him forget all too easily the task for which he had been chosen.

In all of this, Diluc had been the flame that had fueled all those newborn feelings, and it was ironic how it was Diluc himself who had put them out in one night, leaving behind only ash and the weight of a Cryo Vision, that Kaeya had seen more like a curse than a blessing.

The bubble had been created again around Kaeya, perhaps weaker than the one that had protected him as a child, but which had led him to fear of new affections for the anguish of a new abandonment. He had locked the person who was born inside the walls of the Dawn Winery in a prison made of good memories, and had canceled himself in order to rise in rank and carve out a prominent place in the hierarchy of the Knights of Favonius.

That work, along with his network of information, had helped him move forward and overcome, at least in part, abandonment. And when Klee arrived in her life, a small part of that protective barrier had fallen to allow the heat emitted by the child to make him feel something again.

The same thing had happened with Diluc's return after three years away from Mondstadt, but Kaeya managed to get rid of those even more painful thoughts thanks to the cough, which forced him to retract his belief that he felt better than the day before.

He struggled a little to recover from that cough attack, and the violence of that crisis brought him back to think about Klee and the feelings that bound him to her. Kaeya was genuinely concerned about the child, especially after taking into consideration the fact that she contracted that probable virus during the mission.

The idea of finding Klee in bed, with her tiny body shaking from that terrible cough, disturbed him, and with that weight on his conscience Kaeya would hardly be able to start his working day, nor would he be able to find the concentration necessary to carry on completion of all his commitments.

In fact, he left his apartment without even thinking about breakfast to enter in the streets of a Mondstadt still asleep, clearly different from the city full of life and noise that would wake up in a few hours. In that quiet moment, only the merchants seemed aware of the beginning of the day, so much so that they had begun to open their businesses waiting for the first customers, which obviously would arrive soon.

Generally, Kaeya used to stop and talk to them and enjoy that slow coming to life in Mondstadt, with all its sounds and smells like that of freshly baked bread,but all Kaeya's thoughts kept running towards Klee, and his feet moved consequently towards his goal.

He reached the imposing structure of the Headquarters in no time, and in front of it he found the usual two Knights on guard. They both greeted him with a cheerful and cordial tone, and despite being in a hurry, Kaeya returned the greeting with equal kindness. He wondered casually if the two were also aware of the illness that had seized him the afternoon before, but nothing in their eyes seemed to show concern or curiosity.

Maybe they were good at lying or, more likely, the rumors hadn't spread as Kaeya had feared during Barbara and Edmund's visit. He put those thoughts aside once he passed the large entrance door into the facility.

The solid wood creaked a little under the pressure, but Kaeya didn't pay too much attention to it. In fact, his eyes immediately turned to the door of Klee's room which, depending on the severity of her pranks, went from being a bedroom to a 'solitary confinement'. Kaeya took a first step into the large hall of the Headquarters, and his ears were reached by an extremely familiar and unexpected voice.

«You have my gratitude, Jean.»

A simple sentence, spoken with respect and a calm tone, that Kaeya would have recognized even in a crowd.

It was rare to meet Diluc at the Headquarters of the Knights of Favonius. That was a place with too many negative memories, and the aversion that the other now showed for the Knights and their so-called inefficiency had kept him as far away as possible from those walls, if not for very few exceptions.

Consequently, the fact that Diluc was right there could only have been for something extremely important. Kaeya was immediately intrigued, but that interest instantly waned when he saw the office handle slowly lower and he felt forced to put both hands to his mouth, trying to block what seemed to be a retching.

He coughed with pursed lips and, out of pure survival instinct, his legs moved on their own to get past the Grand Master's office and throw open the door of Klee's room, then lock himself inside without even knocking or checking if there was actually anyone.

Kaeya didn’t know the reason for that exaggerated reaction, but Diluc's voice and the fear of confronting him face to face were enough for him to feel about to explode. He leaned his back against the door, continuing to stifle those coughs as much as possible so as not to be heard by the people outside the room, but in the end his body seemed to want to betray him.

He fell to his knees, with no strength left in his legs, gasping to feel something 'real' blocking his throat and preventing him from breathing. Kaeya struck with his closed fist on his chest, coughing with the intention of spitting out whatever was inside his body without even thinking about how absurd that thought was.

He just felt the urgent need to expel that foreign body that was suffocating him.

After what seemed like an eternity to him, Kaeya felt something soft begin to weigh on his tongue, and with a last effort that same thing slid first on the palate to his lips, finally reaching the palm of the hand he had brought in front of his mouth.

The air seemed to flow back into his lungs subjected to that extreme effort, and with his eyes closed Kaeya tried to take deep breaths despite the pain and discomfort he was still feeling.

He remained motionless for a few minutes, and then pulled himself a little to find a slightly more composed position. Kaeya leaned his back against the door behind him, trying to relax but without much success.

When his breathing finally seemed to settle a little, he found the courage to open his eyes and finally take a first look around him. In that way, he discovered that he was alone, and given the absence of voices or hands knocking on the door, it was also likely that no one had seen or heard him during that crisis.

He took another breath, deep and equally painful, and finally looked down at the hand he had held closed in one place until now. Kaeya opened it slowly and looked with no little amazement and disbelief at the foreign body that had risked suffocating him moments before.

It was a petal.

A simple blue flower petal, spotted with dark red flecks. He moistened his suddenly dry lips, and only in that instant did Kaeya feel the annoying iron taste of blood in his mouth.

Kaeya stared at it dumbfounded, disoriented by that discovery, so much so that he was forced to repeat himself several times: "I spat a petal with blood," to be able to really believe it.

It was absurd, but that petal was as real as was the pain he was feeling and that kept him anchored to reality. And coughing up blood was never a good sign, he knew that too well with his poor medical knowledge, but... a petal? That was beyond any logical explanation.

Kaeya slowly got to his feet, making sure his legs were able to support his weight. They were still weak, but he still managed to straighten himself up while still standing close to the door for extra security.

From that position, Kaeya began to become more and more aware of his surroundings, and as much as he would have liked to rejoice at Klee's absence - it meant that the child was fine -, he didn’t feel in the least able to feel that feeling of relief.

He hated the unknown and the absence of logical answers. For Kaeya, everything could be explained and discovered, and what wasn’t known could be studied or purchased with the right information. But that petal enclosed so many of those mysteries, doubts and so many questions, that he felt a vague sense of anguish that he had faced only twice in his whole life.

That simple thought, turned to the past and all its implications, brought another cough from him, which fortunately wasn’t as strong as the previous one, nor accompanied by other petals. Only the taste of the blood remained in his mouth, as if to remind him how much that situation was in danger of getting worse.

He tried to hold on to reality, trying to maintain the necessary clarity to be able to move in that land alien to him. Kaeya knew how to manage internal crises in the Knights of Favonius, how to use all the secrets that reached his ears to his advantage, and was also able to devise winning strategies against opponents of the caliber of the Ruin Guard. He delegated everything that didn’t fall within his competence and, if necessary, Kaeya had several times spent hours and hours bent over books to study, or with the sword in his hand, in order to master what was unknown to him.

Those coughing fits, the blood and the petal, however, were something that went beyond the unknown. They seemed to have deeper and more mystical roots beyond his mere understanding.

It was that thought that made him remember a small detail, which he had ignored until then. With his free hand Kaeya touched his chest, where he had been hit by the attack of the Abyss Mage Dendro yesterday.

He was still in the field of guessing, but the sort of poem that the Mage had uttered until they took their last breath seemed like a curse at that moment.

He repeated them mentally. They had something familiar, not unlike the infantile nursery rhymes he had often heard chanted by the children of Mondstadt, and precisely because of that sense of familiarity Kaeya ruled out that they were truly 'magical' words, because he knew old sayings in the language of his land, but not curses: he was sure of it. It seemed more like a way to mock him than to curse him.

That illness, in any case, could be linked to the magic of the Abyss Mage Dendro and the Door of Resurrection.

They were looking for 'a lab rat', the Mage had said, which made it clear the Order's intention to carry out experiments. Kaeya couldn't be sure, but the more he thought about it, the less that hypothesis seemed unfounded and meaningless.

He tried not to be rushed and to maintain both calm and an analytical approach to study the event as if he weren’t the cursed person. Kaeya knew he couldn't afford to take it personally and always had to think with his clear mind.

At least for the moment, with that uncertainty that threatened to cloud his reason, Kaeya was certain of one fundamental thing: even if the Abyss Mage had claimed to be looking for a lab rat, the fact that they were dead excluded the presence of a real experiment in progress.

As far as Kaeya knew, no one was watching him, least of all the members of the Abyss Order. And in the end that situation boiled down to simple semantics. The definition of ‘lab rat’ implied the presence of two parts and since the Abyss Mage that had cast the spell was dead, one of the two parts had failed. It was also probably no member of the Order who knew about the curse, in some way their plans had been thwarted.

It was a small relief, but it didn’t erase or mitigate the sense of helplessness and uncertainty about how Kaeya could handle this situation.

He therefore decided to move in single steps and to plan the next one only at the end of the first. That approach wasn’t so congenial to him, but the unknowns were too many to allow him to anticipate.

The first thing to do, in any case, concerned his meeting with Albedo. Kaeya was certain that the young alchemist would be able to discover something after analyzing the Door of Resurrection’s sprig and, perhaps, also the petal that he had spat out.

Kaeya took another deeper breath and finally felt ready to move. He put his ear to the door to try to hear the noises outside, and encouraged by the silence he opened it a little to glance into the large hall of the structure.

There was no one and, as he had already found, his crisis had gone unnoticed. The walls of that little room were soundproofed, and Kaeya couldn't help but be surprised to realize that he had completely forgotten about that detail. It was Jean who had wanted it, so that she could work without hearing the suspicious explosions that sometimes came from Klee's room.

He felt almost disappointed in himself for having lost contact with reality in that way and for having let himself be carried away by the illness, but he managed to overcome that sense of disapproval. It wasn’t the time to think about those details, and with a determined step Kaeya left his hiding place to move towards the door of the Headquarters.

He passed the Grand Master's office, wondering almost unwittingly about the possible reasons that had pushed Diluc there to meet Jean, but the pain in his chest and throat, together with the growing urge to leave the facility, led him to quickly put away those thoughts.

Kaeya snorted a cough as he passed the door, and ignoring the two Knights on guard he headed for the building located on the lower level just in front of the Headquarters. It was a building owned by the Knights of Favonius, used mostly as a dormitory for some Knights. Kaeya himself had stayed there for a week or two before moving - he needed his space and a location closer to the heart of the city to do his job.

Among the inhabitants of that structure, which at that moment had become Kaeya's destination, there was also Albedo. In fact it was in the basement of the building that the alchemists' laboratories were located, separated from the headquarters due to the sometimes annoying noises of their experiments.

It was very likely that Albedo was right there at the moment, as his investigation team had no active missions, and Kaeya hoped he wasn't wrong.

Concentrated only on his goal, and without caring about the city that had now awakened and all those familiar sounds and smells, Kaeya entered the structure from the main entrance. By good chance, apart from Albedo and his assistant, inside the building were only the Knights returning from the night watch shift, but nevertheless Kaeya moved in silence and without announcing his presence in order not to draw attention to himself.

He was greeted by a reassuring and pleasant warmth, accompanied by a light scent of flowers that made the structure welcoming. It was the perfect place to rest and relax from the fatigue of work, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine small groups of Knights gathered there to talk and maybe joke, having their hot meal.

The air of camaraderie within those walls was almost palpable, but that atmosphere inevitably changed when Kaeya reached a modest wooden door, located in the anteroom of the entrance.

The door led to a narrow staircase that would lead him to the underground laboratory, and the semi-darkness of this new environment clashed with the warm colors of the upper floors.

Step by step, Kaeya was slowly enveloped by a faint sweetish and almost nauseating smell that grew stronger as he approached the laboratory and that hit him full once inside that new environment.

For a moment the smell confused him, but it didn't cause any fainting or worse. He was only forced to hesitate at the door of the wooden door to get used to it and took a brief pause to look around for Albedo.

Due to the lack of windows, the laboratory was artificially lit by the machinery used by the alchemists and also by a few candles. The main source of light, however, were the chandeliers, which drew their energy from small luminescent glass globes.

Kaeya was no expert, but everyone knew that inside those spheres - which could be found in different shapes even in the streets of Mondstadt - was the dust extracted from the petals of the luminescent flowers picked in Nantiannen. They were an alternative to candles, and along with the Small Grass Lamps, those yellow flowers were among the most used for lighting Mondstadt and Liyue. They were really comfortable and much appreciated as they only turned on at night or in dark places like that.

He glanced left and right over the stone walls of the laboratory and the rest of the furniture. There were tables with stills and abandoned notes, cruets and mortars, herbs left to dry and others to boil. Blackboards full of writings, apparently meaningless drawings and massive shelves that divided the room into others much smaller. On those shelves were the most disparate objects, from books with a mysterious and ancient appearance to other containers of various kinds and sizes.

«Albedo?» he called to announce himself, passing a row of shelves and receiving a surprise exclamation in response, which Kaeya led back to the alchemist's assistant: «Be careful, Sucrose.»

It was easy at that point to reach the source of that voice, in fact it was enough for him to pass another row of shelves to find the two young alchemists at work on a table with other stills, mortars and a Crafting Bench that shone with a slight blue light.

Sucrose was the first to welcome him, clearly showing herself surprised and a little agitated by that unexpected visit, while Albedo, on the contrary, was calm and poised as usual. If the young assistant was easy to read for someone like Kaeya, used to studying people, the same couldn’t be said with Albedo.

He was a good-looking young man with a delicate, fair-skinned face. Soft blond hair and large teal eyes. Polite and elegant, a genius like few others, but beyond that there seemed to be no other nuances. Albedo never let too glaring emotions shine through, if not occasional glances full of interest or thoughtfulness when it came to solving some mystery or facing investigations.

Kaeya had always been intrigued by Albedo, he couldn’t deny it, and several times he had wanted to test the limits to find out how much he was hiding behind his elegant and charming appearance.

He folded his lips in a small smile, trying to keep a calm but equally serious expression on his face.

«Forgive the interruption,» he greeted them with a wave of his hand. «But I have to deliver, with the utmost urgency, some materials to be analyzed.»

Faced with that statement, Albedo's teal eyes almost seemed to shine with interest, which prompted Kaeya to move forward, evoking the Door of Resurrection’s sprig to be able to hand it to the two alchemists. Sucrose took it first, turning it over in front of her face in order to study it, and then handing it over to Albedo who analyzed it in turn.

«It was snatched by Abyss Mage from a Door of Resurrection, and used as a scepter to catalyze the magic,» explained Kaeya, then adding other details such as the 'species' of the Mage which he hoped would be useful for the alchemist's analysis.

Albedo asked him some questions and Sucrose, awkward despite his professionalism, began taking notes on a sheet of parchment. Kaeya knew he had left that branch in good hands, yet he couldn't help but hesitate a little when he had to show the petal to the two. 

He somehow saw that little object as 'intimate' and 'personal', but on the other hand Kaeya also needed answers, and he could only get them by delivering that bloody blue petal.

«There is also this,» he said, extending his hand with the petal directly towards Albedo. The young man immediately took it, observing it carefully with slightly furrowed eyebrows.

«Does it always belong to the Abyss Mage Dendro?» asked the young alchemist. Despite the question, the tone already seemed to have his answer, but he was probably looking for confirmation from Kaeya.

«No, but I think it's... related to them,» explained Kaeya in response, but was unable to give any other information.

He wanted some answers, that was true, but honestly speaking: Kaeya still didn't feel like telling where that petal came from. He would draw upon himself concerns and questions to which he had no answer, and that they would have kept him stuck there in Mondstadt in spite of himself, without the opportunity to look elsewhere for explanations on what for him was a kind of curse.

He was sure it would go that way, because Albedo and Sucrose, on learning the truth about that petal, would have to go to Jean immediately to report, and the Acting Grand Master would put him in solitary confinement. And it was something Kaeya wanted to avoid at all costs.

Fortunately, Albedo seemed partly convinced by his half-answer and asked no more questions. Kaeya doubted it was due to some strange form of empathy, because it was more than likely that the alchemist had taken that statement, devoid of real information, only because of his boundless thirst for knowledge.

«I'll be back in a few days for the results of your research,» finally announced Kaeya, as if he wanted to close the matter.

«We will do our best, Sir Kaeya!» answered energetically and confidently Sucrose.

Albedo nodded seriously without taking his eyes off the two objects that had been given to him. He always had his eyebrows a little furrowed, a sign that he was already analyzing the possible connections between the branch and the petal, perhaps opening and closing hypothetical mental drawers in search of the most useful information to unravel that mystery.

It was almost reassuring to be able to deal with people like Albedo, and Kaeya was sure those two would find at least some of the answers he was looking for.

He took his leave from Albedo and Sucrose altogether, returning to the staircase that would take him to the ground floor of the building. Step by step, Kaeya's mind began to work and process his movements from then on.

He had accomplished the first goal he set for himself and from that moment on Kaeya knew he had to think about his next step. The alternatives were many, but in the end Kaeya had almost no doubts in replying with a: "I have to find other members of the Abyss Order to question."

Consequently, once out of the structure, he couldn’t help but turn his gaze to the headquarters of the Knights of Favonius, certain that he must somehow meet Jean for real.

As a Cavalry Captain, Kaeya had a very specific role here in Mondstadt and his unjustified absence could weaken the ranks of the Knights or lead to unwanted ears. If he wanted to carry out a first-person investigation outside the walls, without the use of informants of any kind, Kaeya had to have Jean's authorization.

It was a bit of a nuisance, but that was the procedure to follow to investigate alone without involving anyone. He carelessly stroked his still slightly sore throat, starting to move slowly towards the steps that would take him back to the headquarters.

His mind was already occupied with the most credible possible excuses he could use to persuade Jean to give him permission to leave town for a few days... and no matter how hard he tried, there were few arrows at his disposal.

Kaeya could lie shamelessly, look like the most sincere person in all of Mondstadt, but with Jean it was different. She was a strong and intelligent woman, resolute and honest, and Jean knew very well who she was dealing with. They had been working together for years, and even though Jean didn't know the real Kaeya, she certainly had a pretty good idea about him.

With those thoughts, he made his way to HQ again and once before the Grand Master's office, Kaeya hesitated to cough into his hand. He tried to stifle the sound of her coughing as much as possible, hoping not to feel suffocated like that morning.

Fortunately, apart from the disturbing taste of blood on the tongue, the cough wasn’t accompanied by any petal or further problems. It was difficult to understand the connection between the hardest and the lightest attacks, but as with other things he would think about it later. That modus operandi continued to seem contrary to his nature, but uncertainty pushed him at the same time to first look for a solid foundation from which to start.

He knocked, chasing away those thoughts and ignoring the taste of blood, and when invited to enter Kaeya tried to keep a neutral expression so as not to show his emotions.

Inside the office there was only Jean, sitting at the desk. The woman's tired expression changed upon seeing him and she seemed to become almost more worried, which immediately alarmed Kaeya.

He tried not to show it and closed the door behind him, greeting the young woman in a calm tone.

«Take a seat as well».

Jean invited him, rising from her desk. It wasn’t a good sign, at least from Kaeya's point, because that desk marked a kind of 'limit'. It wasn’t a written rule, just a kind of non-verbal convention between Jean and the other knights in her immediate circle.

In fact, the young woman preferred to deal with more personal matters face to face, far from that desk that carried with it many obligations.

«I have been told that you are unwell,» declared Jean, thus confirming Kaeya's doubts who, shrugging as if to minimize the situation, obviously took it for granted that Barbara had updated her sister on his condition. He had been the one to suggest it, on the other hand, he wasn’t surprised.

«I'm here. So obviously I'm not that bad,» he answered. «It could have been an allergy or something. But everything is fine.»

He felt almost compelled to add that little clarification, he didn't know exactly what Barbara had told his sister, and he didn't want Jean to think who knows what.

The young woman looked at him suspiciously, studying him from head to toe as if waiting for any detail that might substantiate her thesis. Kaeya gave her a smile, however, trying to appear reassuring.

«I’m not denying that I have been ill,» he then added. «But now I'm better.»

«Kaeya.»

He raised his hand as if to silence her, never ceasing to appear calm. In fact, KAeya didn't particularly like that situation, in a way he was used to receiving attention - sometimes even unwanted - but it was never about his health or something so personal.

«Anyway, I'm not here to talk about myself. I need a permit to leave Mondstadt for a couple of days,» he said, trying to move the conversation in a direction more congenial to him.

Jean frowned, clearly annoyed by the change of subject. She leaned against the desk, crossing her arms across her chest in a thoughtful position. She would come back to the charge again with the health issue, Kaeya was sure of that, but she still seemed to want to give him some rope.

«Generally there would be no problem, but we are talking about you, and I need more information to be able to give you permission. Especially after I have heard of your illness,» she replied.

Kaeya nodded and decided to play face up, at least in part. He had thought of many more or less credible excuses, but in the end it was better to be honest with Jean.

«It's about yesterday's mission. I've thought about it, and I don't want to waste time. I intend to look for other Abyss Order members in the Temples. If they’re targeting the Door of Resurrection, then there is the possibility of finding them also in the other temples of the region. We need to find out why they’re interested.»

That was the truth, stripped of the personal implications of course. Jean didn't need any more worries, Kaeya valued her and knew that Mondstadt needed her to the fullest of her strength.

«Understandable,» accepted the woman after a moment of silence, «but I insist on getting you support. You may be accompanied by-»

«It’s not possible,» cut short Kaeya, interrupting her in a calm tone so as not to appear disrespectful. «I have to move alone to not attract attention. Also, let's nip this in the bud: if I had to work alongside someone, I would find a way to entrust them with some Hilichurls while I take care of the rest.»

Jean sighed, closing her eyes for a few moments, and Kaeya with a half-smile resumed speaking to ease the tension.

«It’s going to end in that way, you know very well. It’s not the first time and it will not be the last. I've always come back here in one piece, right?»

«I know...»

The young woman's tense shoulders had relaxed a little, a sign of surrender. Jean still looked upset - couldn't be otherwise - but they both knew Kaeya would get what he wanted, as always. He would find subterfuges and tricks to bring the situation to his advantage, he might as well have the support of the Acting Grand Master.

«Permission granted, but I want you to be careful and not put yourself into unnecessary danger,» answered a little reluctantly Jean. «Especially if you feel sick… Allergy or not, you have people who care about you, even if they may not show it as they would like.»

Kaeya smiled.

«I'll be careful, I promise.»

And it had to be, because he couldn't afford any missteps in that situation.

Notes:

• I have my own headcanon regarding Kaeya's 'emotional detachment'. He has feelings like everyone else, but he had to choke them several times. First because of Khaenri'ah's teachings and finally after losing Diluc. He wants to protect himself and doesn’t want to bond with anyone, for this reason he tries to stay as far away as possible from affections even if, in the end, it’s not entirely possible because there are many people who care about him... and in his own way Kaeya reciprocates those feelings.

• In this chapter Kaeya spat out the first petal. However, how the curse works will be better explained in the next chapters!