paradoxical | genshin impact

16 : selfish.

This chapter contains NSFW content! Read at your own discretion.

...

During one of your outdoor lessons, Mona taught you about the cogs of fate.

"I'm not particularly fond of comparing our destinies to scraps of lifeless machinery but..." Your teacher sighed, casting a tiny swirl of water that gathered at her fingertips. "A certain alchemist from the Knights of Favonius offered up quite the argument once upon a time."

"And what would that be?" you asked.

The hydromancer cast her eyes in your direction, as if asking if you really wanted to know, but you've learned overtime that Mona would never pass on an opportunity to talk about the entity she'd derived her lifelong practice from—fate.

"That alchemist told me to think of fate as an automaton. A complex device that operates without the intervention of its creator, and inside that automaton are cogs and gears that help it carry out its purpose," she began. "Ultimately, a machine remains stagnant if it doesn't have a catalyst. Those little cogs and gears that turn in time with the other won't move unless there's some outward influence. He supposed that the same goes with the cogs of fate, as well."

Mona averted her gaze as the dew on her fingers dissipated in thin air—tilting her head up before she gazed at the cloudless blue sky. "Normally, I would have protested against such an idea. Comparing fate to human machinations, what a joke... However, I must say, there is some truth to the alchemist's hypothesis." When her silver eyes flickered back to you, a soft smile graced the astrologer's lips.

"Fate never waits for anyone—it delivers what is due when it's due, whether or not you're ready for it. But sometimes it also gives a grace period. A time where humans are free to to change its course by influencing the cogs to turn to their favor. And that, my student, is one of the few things I would've liked to learn earlier in my life."

At the time, Mona's words only sounded like a burst of profoundness that one afternoon in Cape Oath. She did like to impart blips of wisdom every now and again. But now, with Kaeya walking you back to your apartment after a gruelling shift at the tavern, you couldn't help but ponder back on the hydromancer's teachings. The kiss you'd shared underneath the spill of fireworks was nothing but a chaste union of your lips on his—completely and utterly different from the sheer desperation you'd exhibited the night he'd let you sleep in his quarters. It was gentle, undemanding. And the way the Captain had asked for permission made it sound as if he was only waiting to be turned down. But why would you reject someone like Kaeya when—

Wait, no. That's the issue here. Months before your childhood friends had walked back into your life, you never would have imagined willingly...kissing either of them. Even Diluc, the man you claimed to love for as long as you could remember. A gesture like that wasn't meant for people who were only friends to share. But then again, you've seen many patrons get their faces sucked off by a drinking buddy or two in the back corners of Angel's Share. The more you comforted yourself with that line of thinking, the more your sense of rationality resisted. Those people were simply after a night's comfort. A temporary fix. That's the only reason they were willing to let someone so close, so intimately. That wasn't the case with Kaeya and yourself.

At least, you thought it wasn't.

"Whoa there." The Captain's voice startled you out of your bubble of thought when he promptly swerved you away from running into a wooden ladder. "You're preoccupied. Spare mora for your thoughts?" You would have brushed his question off like you always did, but the feel of Kaeya's arm coiled around your waist was a bit...distracting. Right now, he was staring at you with an air of inquiry in his eyes, but the remnants of the prior atmosphere he'd exuded in the tavern still crackled in your senses.