"Where Are You Now?" The Teyvat Anthology

Kunikuzushi

"My past and my present, aren't things I'm proud about, specially since...
I ran away "

逃げました

Kunikuzushi...

The real name of The Balladeer. The name that Ei gave to Scaramouche when he was first created.

A name that many have forgotten, all except one person.

'My dear Kuzu, there you are!'

A 27-year-old woman at the moment he arrived in Inazuma, with galaxy eyes and long silver hair, a Fontaine citizen who decided to leave her life as part of a noble family and went to the great Narukami Island in Inazuma to start a new life. A woman that suffered a lot, was the one that called Scaramouche by his name, a name that felt unfamiliar to everyone except them two.

Falak Boisclair was a woman that left everything behind for an Inazuman man that she loved with madness, he was the love of her life and all they ever wanted was to form a family, willing to see what the future held for them, they were excited about their new life beginning at the outsides of Inazuma City. Until the tragedy came to her life...

Her beloved husband, who died far away from home when he was at war serving his country, was stabbed in the heart by an arrow full of poison that led to his death. She was pregnant with their child, who died 2 years later of a strange heart disease.

Falak was left alone, roaming the Inazuma fields looking for some mental sanity, to surpass the death of her beloved ones... Left with nothing but her love who she had no one to share with.

One day, a few months after, she met Kunikuzushi... A young boy with puppy eyes and purple long hair, looking at everything and everyone desperately trying to find something, perhaps someone. He seemed like a lost doggy and Falak saw herself in that little boy.

They started hanging out, Kunikuzushi came several times to Falak for advice and she was glad that she could help someone again. Falak taught everything she knew about feelings, emotions, and life itself to Kunikuzushi, they would spend afternoons just talking while she was teaching him how to paint, draw, sew, and do more activities. 

It was a matter of time before the purple-haired boy moved in with her and she was the happiest of all when he entered that door with his few belongings. They started to create a sort of family, which wasn't perfect but was everything both of them needed; a warm cozy family, filled with love.

Because no matter what happened in the outside world, it was just the two of them...

Kunikuzushi found in Falek what he had been looking for all this time: a mom. And Falek found happiness in his little Kuzu, she found a family again.

The bitterness faded away from both their lives, and they thought that feeling of loneliness wouldn't come back ever again... and how wrong they were for that.

One sunny day, at noon Kunikuzushi was coming back home after picking some Lavander Melons to make some sweet dessert with her mom and enjoy the rest of the day together while crocheting that blanket they were about to finish when he saw that fox lady that was friends with his creator talking to Falak, talking to her mom. 

And the only thing he could hear from his mom was

'Kunikuzushi? My little Kuzu... isn't real?'

She knew the truth now, she knew what he was and what he put such an effort into not being discovered, the truth of his origins. He could no longer hide who he was and, he was terrified. He hated that feeling, it wasn't fear like the fear he has of thunders and the darkness or the fear Falek has of spiders, it was terror... the same terror that he felt all those years alone, the same terror that his friend had in his eyes when he discovered that same truth.

She was terrified of him now? He didn't dare to know the answer to that question, he was too scared to find out, and he wasn't brave enough as he thought.

So at that same moment, he left. 

He ran away crying, sobbing, and screaming to his creator, asking her if she was having fun while making him suffer. He wasn't worthy of having a normal life?

'A family was too much to ask, right mother?'

Since that day, some years have passed and now, the name Kunikuzushi has two meanings.

For the holder of the name, was a trace of his past that seemed like a lifetime ago. A name that he wanted to erase at all costs because, at the end of the day, his name has always been his destiny: He was destinated to destroy his country, and he was destined to burn Inazuma down into pieces.

And another meaning is totally different from the other. 

Hope, life, family... 

That's the meaning of that name to his mom.

The meaning of Falek.

Because even though she knows the truth, she was never been scared of that, because even now she knows his little Kuzu is part of the Fatui and is no longer the same boy who she met all those years ago, he was still his child and he will always be.

The only thing she longs for now is to see his beautiful son and hug him, kiss him, filled him with the love that she's been holding for him, brush his purple velvet hair, and finish that blanket that has never been touched again ever since he left. He wants to be with his boy again, so she waits every noon sitting at the door with Lavender melons on her side and some Dango milk, waiting to see her boy again through the sunset coming back home. 

But even tho, years have passed since the last time Kunikuzushi saw his mother since he left that name and started going by Scaramouche since he joined the Fatui and filled his heart with anger driving him to madness... He's still scared to go back home and disappoint his beloved mother with what he has become, and what he has done all these years apart from her side. And all he wants is to feel like that little boy from before and be on his mother's gaze more while she's singing lullabies to calm him down after a storm.

Because even after all these years, he's not brave enough to dare the lightning glow.

逃げない

"Traveler, if you ever encounter any problems with my boy, please don't be too harsh on him and forgive him... Also, tell him that... mommy misses him, and to come back home... please"