Albedo himself feels there is something missing where his heart should be, a gaping hole of love with nowhere to go, his tears have been shed, and all that sits is your laugh, your smile, and the little ways you showed him how to live and breathe.

Who will swoon at his wit? Who will admire his work while asking a variety of questions that sometimes has even him stumped for an answer. You brought even more light to his world and suddenly—you're gone. His world dimmer and numb as he continues his work. Is it defying fate and the gods of Teyvat themselves if he wishes to bring you back?

Wanderer

How much sorrow could a puppet take? He has taken countless titles and names but being yours was the sweetest thing he'd been called. He usually detests sweets but you wormed your way in either way. Scara could only laugh in bitter sorrow, had he not learnt? How fragile and easy human life is to take? He should've protected you, he should've been fast enough, you shouldn't have been the one to die.

It should've been him instead—now he'll never hear your annoying voice in his ear telling him about your day, he'll never gaze over you—amused, whenever you ate something too sour, worst of all he'll have to live his life without you.

He knew with his lifespan that would've eventually happened but you still had years to be by each other's side. He thought he'd see you grow older, wiser, and still the most beautiful person he's ever loved. But fate is cruel and the gods have taken you from him leaving him in a state of numbness. Sometimes in the dead of night he calls out your name. Even though he knows you're not there to answer with his name on your lips.

He knows Lesser Lord Kusanali and Durin are worried but whenever his eyes close—he swears he can still feel you.

Kaeya

The Calvary captain has certainly had his fill at both Angel share and The Cat's Tail. He wobbles up to his usual seat by the bar expecting Charles but was unfortunately met with the pitying gaze of his older brother—Diluc. He dodges his look, he can't stand letting his brother see him in this sorry state. You've been gone for a few days—heh it wasn't a hard mission surely?

Then why did you come back cold? Was it him? His vision did lose control the moment he saw you. Nothing mattered except you, he remembers begging Barbara, Jean, Varka to do something—anything to bring you back to him.

The sinner himself even prayed to Barbatos himself to help him just this once to save you. Yet, he never answered and you were already buried with all the memories you two shared. Now all Kaeya has done is work, work, and work—recklessly throwing himself in work and alcohol. If he didn't he'd be restless. Kaeya sees his brother soften as he slides him a cool glass of water instead, he doesn't realize it himself but Kaeya was crying staring at the table.

He misses your voice, your anger, your frustrations, and your joy. He misses it all and wished he could keep you company just once more to see you.

Varka

Few have seen the grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius so downtrodden and silent. His usually boisterous laughter dimmed into a polite chuckle when the Knights tried to lift the master's spirits but even they can feel the lost of you. After all, the grandmaster always bragged about you, spoke about your achievements, and how lovely you were to him. He laughed loudly when the Knights complained about how much he kept taking about you.

Though, seeing him now was unnerving. He didn't run away from paperwork and did his duties to the letter. He went around Mondstadt but not with the same fearless bravado and charm.

On some nights, some could hear sobs coming from his office. Other nights, his broken laughter could be heard along a chorus of calling your name. Most likely looking through your photographs. The grandmaster doesn't waver much in his duties but there's always this air of melancholy in his words, his smile, and his actions. He mustn't break down. For you and for Mondstadt. 

Easier said than done honestly, he thinks to himself sitting by your gravestone with a bottle of wine and memories shared between you. The good, the bad, and everything in between. You were both supposed to live till you were wrinkly old people loving each other till your dying breath. Varka chuckles lovingly defeated as he pours you both a drink. To us.

Lohen

The peculiar vice captain of the fifth company had always been a mystery to most. He was thrilled in battle and moved as if he was the arrow itself—cold, sharp, and precise. So, it was terrifying seeing him sluggish a moment then switching up to his usual demeanor once there was an audience. Though only few could see the change in him—it wasn't unexpected when his reason to live each day the best he could passed away just a mere two weeks ago.

Lohen, pierced through the monsters like a bullet using his bow when it called for it while dealing the finishing blow with his pole arm. Hes been like this for a while, spacing out after every kill like he sees you off in the distance—waiting to treat his wounds if there were any. Sometimes he did it on purpose just to see you fret over him.If he were a regular knight that would've been an issue but even as the massive axe comes for him—he dodges like he expected it taking the metachurl down in under a minute.

After every battle, his eyes still search for you and when he doesn't see you a maniacal bitter laugh erupts as he walks away waving off people's mixed reactions of confusion, pity, and understanding. You held his heart, his name on your lips, and the smile on his. He doesn't know how long till the numbness reaches his soul without you as he walks off to visit your grave again tonight.

Baizhu

Immortality could have saved the both of you. He wouldn't have to loose you if you were immortal, wouldn't he? Baizhu muses to himself behind the counter of the Bubu Pharmacy where he continued the business. He didn't want to remain idle not when that idleness cost him you. 

He wishes he was stronger and more capable. Maybe then—you wouldn't have slipped from his fingers right into to deaths cold hard embrace.

He's spent days crying at night just wishing you were beside him, waiting for him, and just talking to him about nothing and anything in between. It's within those moments that Changseng becomes quiet looking at Baizhu breaking down at night while at day he remains composed and at the point of acceptance like he wasn't begging and clawing for the gods to bring you back to him while he coughs and sobs gripping your side of the bed—it still smelt like you and that brought forth another round of tears of both comfort and yearning.

To hold you again, to see you achieve your wildest dreams, and to be you. Just you. Qiqi sometimes remembers and asks Baizhu where you were and each time he patted her head gently, eyes softening, smile soft yet heavy as he answers, “Just on a trip.” And each time he wishes it were true.

a/n: written before Lohen release so might be a bit ooc

kaveh

kaveh does not let you go quietly.

he tries. at first. tells himself he has survived worse — failure, ruin, debt, the slow erosion of dreams. tells himself he knows how to lose things. tells himself this is just another collapse he will learn to live inside.

his body disagrees.

grief hits him in waves so strong they make him physically sick. it starts with his chest — tight, constricting, like something is sitting on him, crushing the air from his lungs. breathing becomes work. his hands shake so badly he drops things, fingers refusing to obey. sometimes the pain settles behind his eyes, sharp and blinding, and he presses his palms there like he can hold himself together by force.

he throws up the first time he realizes you are truly gone.

his body bends over the sink and rejects the idea violently, like it cannot metabolize it. like grief is a toxin and he is failing to purge it fast enough.

he hates himself for that.

hates that it’s ugly. hates that it’s undignified. hates that even this — even his own body — he cannot control.

kaveh cries until his throat is raw.

he cries so hard it aches. sobs that wrench through him, that leave his ribs sore the next day. he cries into pillows, into his hands, into empty rooms that still feel like they’re shaped around you.

alone, he screams.

he screams until his voice breaks, until his body folds in on itself, until he’s curled on the floor with his nails digging into his arms just to feel something solid. he calls your name until it stops sounding like a word. until it becomes nothing but pain.there is nothing you can do to help him now.

that realization hurts almost as much as losing you.

because loving you taught him that pain could be shared, eased, softened. that there was always someone who would sit beside him, rub his back, tell him to breathe, and help him carry the weight.

now there is no one.

now there is only the echo of what used to be there.

what makes it worse is that the world does not stop.

people still talk. still laugh. still walk beside him like his heart isn’t splitting open with every step.

he tries to keep functioning. he goes out, meets friends. they drag him into conversations, into cafés, into places that smell like life continuing. he laughs too loudly at the wrong moments. drinks too much wine because the burn in the throat is easier to endure than the ache in his chest.

once, he shows them a project he somehow managed to finish. he is almost able to pretend. almost.

until someone says it — careless, unthinking, cruel without meaning to be.

yeah, it's a really great piece, y/n would have loved it.

it feels like being stabbed.

the sound of your name cuts straight through him, precise and merciless. the name lodges in his chest and detonates. he laughs first — a sharp, broken sound that doesn’t belong to him — and then the breath leaves his lungs all at once.

his vision blurs. his hands curl into fists so tight his nails bite into his palms, but it’s not enough. it’s never enough.

he shakes his head, mutters something incoherent, and then he’s standing up too fast, chair scraping loudly against the floor. people stare. someone reaches for him. someone asks if he’s okay.

he isn’t.

tears spill over before he can stop them, hot and humiliating. his breathing stutters, chest hitching like it forgot how to work. he presses a hand to his mouth, but the sound escapes anyway — a strangled sob that makes the room go painfully quiet.

he apologizes between gasps. sorry, sorry, i just— like grief is something he’s doing wrong.

later, alone again, it’s worse.

he collapses against the wall, slides down to the floor, and cries until his throat burns. he hits the ground with his fist, once, twice, again, because the anger has nowhere else to go. he screams your name into the empty air and hates that it echoes back at him, because he doesn't want to hear it anymore.

everything reminds him of you.

arches you would have admired. light you would have chased. every unfinished project. every sketch left half-done. every ridiculous, hopeful idea that once made sense because you were there to believe in it with him. your absence makes the world feel structurally unsound, like a building missing a critical support.you were woven into everything, and now, every reminder feels like tearing something out of his chest again and again and again.

he hates himself for being alive.

for waking up every morning when you don’t.

for still thinking about buildings and designs and stupid, beautiful ideas when you’ll never see them.

he cannot stop replaying the last moments.

what he said. what he didn’t. how sure he was there would be more time.

he thinks about all the futures with you he designed in his head — carefully, lovingly, with rooms for love, warmth, laughter and shared mornings — and realizes they are all uninhabitable now.

kaveh takes your death personally, of course he does.

he tells himself this is his fault. that loving him was a burden, that he was too much for you. that if you hadn’t had to carry his dreams and concerns alongside your own, maybe you would still be here. maybe you would have lived longer.

he lives in the memories of you — choking on them, bleeding from them, screaming until there is nothing left in him but the echo of your name and the unbearable knowledge that there is nothing he can do to bring you back.

al-haitham

al-haitham understands death.

he understands it biologically, statistically, historically. he understands what happens to the body, what ceases, what remains. he has read enough to know that grief is a neurological response, that attachment alters cognition, that loss disrupts routine and perception.

when you die, he accepts it immediately. there is no denial. no bargaining. no frantic search for meaning. he listens to the facts, asks the necessary questions, commits the details to memory. cause. timing. circumstances. he does not need comfort. he does not raise his voice.

people mistake this for strength, or worse — indifference. they assume this means he did not love you deeply.

he does not correct them. there is no utility in doing so.

he tells himself that emotions are transient. that the mind adapts. that the brain, given time, will recalibrate to the absence of a stimulus.

you were a stimulus. therefore, you can be removed.

this logic holds for about six days.

on the seventh, he realizes his routines are malfunctioning.

he reaches for his book and pauses, distracted by the absence of your weight against his side. he prepares two cups of tea before noticing only one of you is still alive. he finds himself mentally composing arguments to thoughts you will never voice again.

the errors are small. persistent. irritating.

he tells himself this is normal.

he does not cry. crying is inefficient. he does not scream. screaming solves nothing. instead, his grief manifests as friction — between thought and feeling, logic and reality.

he cannot stop replaying conversations, not because he misses them, but because his mind insists on finding the moment where something could have been altered. a different choice. a different word. a variable adjusted.

there is none, and it bothers him more than it should.

he keeps your belongings exactly where they were. not out of sentimentality — he dislikes clutter — but because removing them would require acknowledging permanence, and he is not ready to formalize that conclusion.

he tells himself he will deal with it later. later does not come.

instead, you linger in negative space. in the silence between pages. in the chair across from him that remains unused. in the way his thoughts drift, unprompted, toward how you would have responded to something mundane.

he does not miss you in the way people expect. he misses your interference. the way you disrupted his solitude without exhausting him. the way you challenged him emotionally, not intellectually — something he never mastered how to respond to. the way you looked at him like he was more than a collection of habits and conclusions.

you used to comment on his habits. the way he read while eating. the way he forgot to sleep. the way he pretended not to listen while memorizing everything you said anyway. you would sit beside him, sometimes doing nothing at all, and he would allow it — a rare exception to his preference for solitude.

he never thanked you for that.

that is the thought that keeps resurfacing.

al-haitham does not romanticize the dead. he refuses to soften you into memory. he remembers you accurately — alive, flawed, occasionally irritating, deeply real. that makes it worse. because it means you are not an idea he can revisit at will. you were a presence. a constant input. and now the system has lost a critical function.

his sleep deteriorates. not from nightmares — his mind is not imaginative in that way — but from overanalysis. he lies awake cataloguing the changes in himself, detached enough to observe them, not detached enough to stop them.

he notices that his tolerance for inefficiency decreases. that he snaps more easily. that his patience — already limited — erodes further.

he recognizes this as grief.

he does not know what to do with that information.

people expect him to move on quickly. they expect rationality to shield him. they expect his composure to mean closure. they are wrong. acceptance would require him to concede that something irreplaceable existed in his life. something that cannot be replicated, substituted, or optimized.

this conflicts with everything he believes about the world.

so instead, he exists in suspension. he does not say he loved you. not because it isn’t true, but because saying it would force the sentence into the past tense. he avoids that grammatical finality with the same precision he avoids emotional exposure.

sometimes, he catches himself forming a thought meant for you and stops halfway through.

sometimes, he doesn’t stop. sometimes, he speaks it aloud, quietly, to an empty room, just to test whether hearing his own voice say it makes the absence easier to accept — it doesn’t.

he continues forward, efficient, composed, untouched on the surface — carrying a loss he understands perfectly in theory, and not at all in practice.

and sometimes, in moments of unguarded stillness, he wonders — with mild, unfamiliar bitterness — whether this is what people mean when they say intelligence does not protect you from grief.

only from showing it.

lyney

lyney knows how to smile through anything, that has always been his talent.

applause rises, lights warm his skin, the familiar rhythm of performance settles into his bones. he bows at the right moments, hits every cue, lets wonder bloom exactly where it’s meant to. to the audience, nothing has changed. he is still charming. still dazzling. still magic made human.

from the outside, nothing seems wrong.

but lyney knows the difference between performing for an audience and performing for you.

when you were alive, performing felt like sharing a secret. every trick, every flourish carried the quiet knowledge that you were out there somewhere — watching, smiling, seeing him, not the illusion. your eyes would find his instinctively, like a thread pulled tight between the stage and the dark.

now, the seats blur together, and the stage lights feel harsher.

he goes through the motions because that’s what he’s good at. because stopping would invite questions he has no intention of answering. because grief, to him, is not something to be shared.

he still performs flawlessly, but the joy has thinned. where excitement used to flutter in his chest, there is now a hollow patience. after performances, people congratulate him. they say he was wonderful. that he seemed radiant. that the magic felt especially real tonight. he thanks them politely.

they don’t know that the magic feels thinner now. that without you watching, every illusion collapses a little faster.

when he’s alone, the mask slips. not dramatically. not all at once.

he stays in dressing rooms long after everyone else has left, staring at his reflection with a neutrality that borders on exhaustion. makeup smudged. smile gone. the silence pressing in around him like a held breath.

he thinks about how you used to watch him prepare.

how you’d comment on the details — the gloves, the cards, the careful precision of his hands. how you’d tell him he looked confident even when he felt anything but.

you believed in him in a way that felt grounding. anchoring.

now, there is no one to confirm that he is still real when the curtain falls.

sometimes he sits on the edge of his bed, costume half-unbuttoned, and stares at his hands like they might explain something he missed. sometimes he presses his fingers into his palms just to feel something solid, something undeniably real.

he thinks of the way you used to watch him rehearse. how you would sit cross-legged on the floor, chin in your hands, offering commentary he pretended not to care about and secretly treasured. how you always noticed the small changes — a sleight done cleaner, a pause held longer. how you clapped even when no one else was there.

you were his favorite audience.

he does not allow himself to imagine you watching now.

that would be cruel.

he keeps your things tucked away, not hidden, just… set aside. like props from an old act he hasn’t decided whether to retire. touching them hurts too much. leaving them untouched feels worse.

sometimes, before a performance, he catches himself thinking, you would like this one.

the thought lands wrong. heavy. final.

because you will never see it.

the realization arrives fresh each time, sharp as a misdirected blade. no matter how many shows he performs, no matter how many nights he stands beneath the lights, there will never again be that familiar weight of being seen by the one person who mattered most.

he does not talk about you much. people assume he has moved on easily — he laughs, he jokes, he performs. he looks whole. grief, to them, should be obvious. loud. disruptive.

lyney has never grieved that way.

his grief waits until the door closes. until the lights go out. until there is no one left to impress. then, it slips through the cracks.

a quiet ache. a soft, relentless understanding that every performance now ends the same way — with applause fading into silence, and you not there to meet him afterward.

the show goes on. he still bows. still smiles. still lets the magic sparkle.

but somewhere deep inside, the part of him that performed for you has gone very still.

and no trick he knows can bring that back.

telling himself otherwise would have been simply a deception. and magic was never about deception to him.

it was about sharing wonder. about being seen.

and now, he is left only with the unbearable certainty that the one person he wanted to amaze the most will never watch him again.