Chapter Text
A successful suicide is always harder than you think. Some back out half way, others have too much connections. Some gets stopped midway.
In Kaeya's words, it requires the upmost precision, preparation and research. There are steps you must follow.
Think of it as reverse engineering a watch. You don’t smash it. You lay out the tools. You remove the casing. You extract the gears, one by one, noting their function and their relationship to the whole, until all you are left with is a empty shell. The tick slows. The tock falters. Finally, you remove the mainspring. No one will mind a empty shell that went to waste. No one will notice one clock that disassembled itself, when there are hundreds more, still spinning for a future. You, the reader, I assume don't have if you are reading a suicide manual.
This guide is not for the passionate, but only for those who knows and wants to die 100%. For those no longer see a purpose to living, and has no problems with breaking all existential ties. I will guide you on a successful suicide with no loose ends (no pun intended). I, Kaeya Alberich, can tell you all about it, and take you through the process, all the way to the very end.
But first, you must understand the context. You must understand the life it once was and could have been before you take it apart.
Red is the color of his hair, the smell of wine mixed with what could have been love but turned to hate and anger.
Some mornings I don't recognize myself in the mirror. Some days I wonder if my mask is slipping, if everyone is going to figure out that their grand old calvary captain is nothing else than a flux. I could feel it every morning when I faced the mirror to fix my eyepatch. The face that looked back was familiar, handsome, arranged into a smirk I’d perfected for years. Spread your jaw wide, show some teeth, and crinkle your eyes, and there, a perfect smile. But the eyes… the one visible eye was a stranger’s, the scar running down it reminding me over and over of that night. It was like watching a master puppeteer slowly lose feeling in his hands. The strings were there, the movements were correct, but what of the puppeteer? I could no longer feel my lips as I lift the corners of mouth now , to lace that familiar, teasing lilt into my voice. As if, if I can manage to pull my mouth to the correct angle, and speak with the correct tone, noone would suspect a thing. I laughed at that. So what if they suspected something was amiss, I don't have anything to lose anyways. The witty retorts felt like reciting lines from a play whose meaning was in a language I’d forgotten, for an audience I could no longer see. I could barely consume food, everything tastes like sand. It's no trouble, really. I'm not hungry either. I suppose my appearance worries Jean and the knights a lot, she told me yesterday about how pale I look, and how I should take a break. It's such a joke coming from a workaholic like her. Besides, maybe if I worked more, I'd be worth something. I'm so fucking tired. Please. I just want to rest.
Diluc found me sitting on the ledge of the bridge leading to Mondstadt, it's funny how none of the knights even cared enough to stop me. I suppose they are as imcompetent as Diluc says they are. Isn't that funny? Diluc and I used to play here, catching fishes and chasing each other in races. That was much more simpler times, perhaps times when I could still smile without the burden of life weighing me down. I didn't even notice him approaching, that should have been a warning sign. I was slacking off, what a bad image for the knights, huh. The murky water below me still flows like years ago, nothing changed. I suppose it never will. You see, even actors forget they are on a stage sometimes, when your life has been a lie carefully pieced together. I’d forgotten to perform.
“You look like hell.”
His voice didn’t startle me, when it probably should have. It was just another performance.
The old me, the one whose reflexes were still sharp, would have spun around lazily, a characteristic smirk decorating his face. The me that was left just turned my head. The movement felt heavy, as if my skull were filled with wet sand, each move causing a headache. “Good morning, Master Diluc. Are you here to admire the view as well?”
He ignored my taunts, as he always did. I suppose he grew older, no longer relying on lies to build his life up, no longer needing me. His eyes swept over me, a small frown forming on his forehead. The braid I hadn't re-tied since yesterday, perhaps not even tied after all my drinking, strands of blue twirling messily around. The bruise colored dark shadows under my eye that no amount of charm or concealer could hide anymore. The uniform, always impeccable, now hung on me like a costume on a rack after the show, wrinkled and untidy.
“What’s wrong with you?”
"My... my! Does Master Diluc care about me?"
"... Answer the question, Sir Kaeya."
"..."
For a dizzying, terrifying second, I wanted to cry, I wanted to hold on to him, to ask him to stay, to tell him the truth. Everything is empty. I'm so tired. I can't think and feel anymore. Everyday I drink myself to death as if it would solve anything. I just want everything to stop. Please. Please help me. Please. Please why can't you just see.
I laughed, the sound was a bit off, I noticed offhandedly, perhaps I had used too much throat or tougue during that laugh. “What could possibly be wrong? The sun is shining, the dandelion wine is flowing, the birds are singing their little hearts out. All is precisely, perfectly as it should be in our lovely city of freedom. Lord Barbatos bless us! Should I not look content?”
He stepped closer until I could smell the charcoal off him. It used to be the smell of home, of safety. Now it doesn't even matter.
“Stop it.” Diluc spits “Just for once, stop the goddamn act. I don't have time for this. What. Is. Wrong. With. You.”
“The act?” My voice dropped all pretense, and I couldn't help but snort hysterically, tears prickling at the edge of my eyes, me refusing to let them fall. “You want the truth? From me? You, who tried to kill me when I told you the truth? Who disowned me? Is that what you want? To be proven right so the oh so great Master Diluc can tell everyone what a traitor and failure I am?”
Diluc flinched.
“So that’s it,” he said. His voice was low, cold. “Self pity. The tragedy of a man who chose his own bed. You smiled when Father died, you lied to us for years. You don’t get to stand there now and look wounded by it. You don’t get that.”
Haunted.
I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say to it.
The air was tense between us like it always was, there was no trace of the unbreakable bond that two brothers once claimed to have shared. The anger burned out of me, leaving nothing but a empty hole. Whatever we’d been performing for each other was finished. There was no reveal waiting behind the curtain. Just the wreckage. Two men standing where a brotherhood used to be, with our father’s ghost between us and a country neither of us could cross.
I looked at him, too tired to smile. I didn’t have the energy.
“You’re right,” I said. My voice sounded wrong to my own ears. Flat. “Forget it.”
I walked past him. Our shoulders didn’t brush. He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t call my name. We were nothing to each other.