Kaeya never really addresses what he's been through for quite a simple reason: he was not an emergency. he wasn't a shriek, he wasn't loud, or passionate, or taking much space with his grief to be noticed and pampered around.
he wasn't the hurricane. just a drizzle.
just a fine mist, reflecting the droplets into the rainbow, scattering around small sun rabbits, all while evaporating from the face of the Teyvat. as simple as that.
when he had fallen and scraped his knees, Adelinde could hear his shriek from afar, readying the kit and gauze, sighing and shaking her head. when he had failed something, Crepus could understand it from the loud stomping and creaking floorboards, long before the words were even uttered. when he was unfairly treated by adults, Kaeya was aware of it from single angry line, sharpening Diluc's face into the grimace.
the thing is... Diluc was Kaeya's emergency, too.
when Kaeya had fallen from the tree and broken his leg, Kaeya was quiet, and Diluc was wailing, scaring half of the staff to death. when Kaeya was bullied by the kids and teachers, Kaeya listened as if indifferent, but Diluc was angry and was loud and demanding. when Kaeya was sick and his fever made him delirious, he stayed in bed unmoving, yet Diluc aroused the manor by his running and bumping into things.
Kaeya never learned how to be an emergency.
when Diluc left for the country he never knew, but already hated, Kaeya knew that it was an emergency of another kind; a shriek of despair; the loud crack of the bones; low, dangerous growling, setting alarms haywire.
when Diluc left, Kaeya slowly shifted to never a problem.
never an emergency, never a shriek, never a loud one.
passerby, at the very least. no worries could bother him the type. smooth as ever, smile to cover, icy shield to protect. never hurt enough to set the room flying in horror, never depressed enough to get people worrying, never charming enough to see someone staying glued to his side.
so, when he lost Crepus (his father, the paper says), he visited the grave alone. when he lost his brother to the rage, he never complained, he never told anyone how fragile he was, holding the golden casing with pulsing Pyro in his hands and breathing shallow, afraid it's destined to go out. when his mind screamed at him, he masked the voices with wine and the bard's song. when his hand held the tiny line, ready to snap in half and be finished, he covered it and went to work the next morning.
he isn't an emergency. never was, never will be.
but oh, how he dreamed that one day, there will be no need to be one.
(Diluc returns, and Kaeya learns how to be the emergency for him. Snezhnaya destroyed his brother to the core, but Kaeya refuses to give up. he never learns how to be the emergency others need to look at before he's too close to cross the drawn line of sirens, going silent. Diluc thinks, bitterly, that he should've noticed first.)
