Nemesis of the Dark

And what was a chance meeting between two strangers if they were to never meet again?

That was what Diluc thought as he carefully cleaned the glass in his hands, only to nearly drop it at the sight of orange, grays, and reds at the corner of his eye.

“Haha, I didn’t think we’d meet again so soon, Red! Is this luck?” Those dead blues curve up in amused crescents, staring into Diluc’s. Who would’ve known that what he thought was a simple Fatui lackey all those years turned out to become the eleventh harbinger himself?

Celestia sure knew how to play with him in the worst way possible.

“I request that you step out of my establishment this instant,” he snaps, suddenly feeling irritated by how carefree the other seemed to be despite waltzing into his territory. It was a shame that he couldn’t bring his claymore to scare him off lest he damage his most expensive liquor behind him.

And to his further irritation, the harbinger had the gall to laugh, and somehow, he found it… pleasant? Barbatos forbid, he even dares to say that the short laugh he heard sounds like music to his ears.

Diluc’s eye twitches at the thought, and he thinks that he must be going insane.

“... … … …! … …? … … … …”

The Fatui harbinger’s mouth opens and closes as he continues talking, but Diluc decides to ignore it in favor of sizing him up. The man has certainly grown in the time that they weren’t able to see each other, and he could see the well-trained muscles hiding behind that awful coat. Tartaglia’s face also seemed to mature compared to before, looking much more slim with a slightly crooked nose from a healed broken nose.

His wandering eyes focus on the freckles he spotted on Tartaglia’s cheeks absentmindedly, his hand traitorously itching to take a pen just to connect the dots.

Damn Fatui and their unfairly attractive ginger diplomat.