Thinking about how Kaeya was taught vastly differing morals at a young age, one taught him that he must remain secretive and trusts no one whereas the other taught him to be kind and to ask for help whenever he could.
That would've been so confusing for him and he lives the rest of his life in a constant fight between Crepus's ideology or his birth father's.
And then Klee came along and his world was turned upside down because not ONCE did he ever think to tell her to trust no one. Not even in passing did he ever want to teach her to hold her weapon closer than she does her peers.
He doesn't want her to grow up cynical as he did.
Klee was Kaeya's undoing and I'd argue Collei as well. Kaeya never viewed himself as a child, he never thought he was once the one who needed protection.
He was always a threat to Mondstadt, never once allowed himself to actually acknowledge how young he was when the burden of nations was placed on him.
That's why he attacked Collei, he saw himself in her, the same cynicism, the shifty story, the constant need to look over her shoulders. A liar knows one when they see one.
Kaeya never considered her a child because he never considered himself one. Just a threat that needed to be exposed for what they truly are. It's not until Collei tells Kaeya to kill her that he hesitates as he realizes she didn't want this either.
She didn't choose to be a threat. She carries it like a burden, bound to hurt the people around her if she even gets remotely close. And that was a little closer to home than he would've liked to admit
And he decides to help her because it clicks for him, finally, that Collei's a kid. She didn't have a choice.
He helped her free herself of her burden because he wishes someone could've done the same to him, if someone had found out that is.
Klee was the picture of childhood innocence. He sees a younger Diluc when he glances at her, someone whose joy he couldn't preserve. So he strives every day to keep that light burning this time because he cannot fail again.
Collei, however, was a younger him. The lying, the hostility, the mistrust, foreigner from another nation which she refuses to speak of. There was no innocence to be preserved, she knows the world as he sees it. He's seen it before in himself and it puts him on guard. The need to expose the danger she possessed was blinding because he knew. He was in the same shoes. Well, he thought he knew.
Something about Collei being friends with Kaeya makes me so happy because, in some ways, it's him accepting that there is a path to happiness for people like them, who lost it all and felt like there was no way out. Collei understanding why Kaeya did what he did also lends credit to the fact that both of them get each other in a way that they can't really explain to other people.
Collei heals through Amber but understands herself through Kaeya.
All this yapping is to say that both Klee and Collei were Kaeya's wake up call to take control of his own fate. Collei was freed from hers, it's his turn. "I am no pawn in heaven's plan" or whatever he said in his hangout quest idk man I don't like Kaeya.
Or maybe I'm reading too deep into this and this is all me trying to justify contradicting personality traits bc someone (HOYO) seems to forget he exists and is a complex character outside of Diluc and Klee idk anymore man
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