DISCONTINUING - Fairytale Dreams [Diluc x Reader x Kaeya]

ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ２

[name] stood at the foot of the small slope that lead to the large house in front of her. The house she spent hours over hours in her daily life to pay into. Her eyes downcast over to her feet, a nervous lump formed into her throat at the mere thought of what she should say as soon as she stepped a foot into the first room. Her hands balled into fists struggling to free itself from the pressure building up from within her. The [hair color] haired girl strolled at a slow pace feeling meek the closer she had gotten to the tall building before her.

Her hands fumbled for the key at the front door, unlocking it and opening it with a small creak echoing in it's small perimeters.

"I'm home." [name] managed to call aloud, stepping further inside then closed the door behind her. What she got was an unwelcome greeting and bellowing laughter hollering from a large room a few feet away from her.

The living room was massive enough for a family of four, more than big enough as a matter of fact. While another was away, the only other two was a light skinned brunette older woman who looked to be around her thirties or forties, eyes blue, dressed in a refined long dress, joking around with a younger girl around [name]'s age who looked much closer to the person beside her except she had blonde hair instead of brown hair.

[name] dared not move, at least, not until the two took notice of her presence.

Both of their eyes grew wary and the atmosphere immediately grew heavy. "What the hell are you standing there for after coming back so late?"

"Mu qin, mei mei [1], I'm back home一 "

"Who's your sister! I didn't acknowledge letting you call me that."

Her feet shuffled, fingers playing with one another like she was a guilty child. "G- Guinevere..." She glanced over to the woman who snarked at her right beside her blonde incarnate. "Mother."

Adelle Aviatora, the woman who raised her up after these past couple of years still had that long look of disdain as she always did ever since she first met [name]. Even more whenever she was called 'mother' by her.

She scoffed at [name]'s greetings glancing at her own polished long nails. "Mutt, what did I tell you about the Liyue antics when your father isn't home? They're unwelcomed here in this house. It's so wrong for Mondstadt to welcome such a savage culture to be accepted into this city out of anywhere. I just simply don't see it."

Her eyes glanced over to [name], obviously aiming the talk on her. "Why someone from Liyue gets to live here."

[name] stiffened up unsure of how to respond to the rude comment, except to add to the topic. "Like I've said before, my一 "

" 一Mother is from Liyue and therefore you grew up with the norms of the culture." Odelle finished in her stead continuing on in her short speech after. "But that doesn't matter because like I've told you already: it's not welcome here. Change it."

With a loss of confidence in her voice of reasoning, [name] turned towards the only thing she knew next which was to timidly accept her situation. "I'm sorry."

 She glanced over to the stack of papers stacked on top of a small table, so she rose her head. "Was there anything in the mail一 "

"If it's about school you can simply just forget it." Adelle cut her off a second time. "You've been lacking so much in your pay, you should just drop out at this point." A smirk crossed her face mocking [name] in her state. "Like you should have done earlier, off you go now. Shoo."

Her teeth gnawed at each other in reluctance. "No, it's been awhile and I want to go so I'm going to school tomorrow." She mentioned briefly in spite of Adelle having told her off just now. "Until then, see you in the morning, mother... Guinevere..."

She felt the pair of mother-daughter eyes on her as she dragged her feet across the hall, not up the stairs. There was no fine bedroom up there for her, only a small storage room beside the kitchen waiting for her. Closing the door behind her, she slumped her back against the wooden panel until her bottoms hit the floor.

The doorknob lacked a lock, her one key away from privacy, a step away from the cruel world that rested just outside that thin doorframe.

She stared up at the at the ceiling, the earlier words Adelle had poured into her head clouded her mind.

"I wish she wasn't married to ba [2] either." [name] muttered to herself burying her face into her knees.

It was quiet until she shuffled over to the side of the shelf, pulled out her tatami mat, unrolled her sleeping bag onto it and tucked her legs into the warmth of her blankets. Just as she was about to force sleep on her conscious, her eyes locked with a book sitting a few inches away from beside her. Slowly her fingers grazed the book's spine pulling it out of its place.

"Cinderella." She read the title.

The most basic fairytale there ever was in all of history.

[name] chuckled. "I'll read for her a bit tomorrow morning before school starts."

The next morning was another unsettling one. Like she promised she would, she had got up very early on, loaded crates onto a cart and dropped them off at Springvale, helped set up Ms. Flora's stand afterwards and took a quick walk home to change and get ready for school, her first class一in almost an entire week.

However instead of going straight to the cathedral that held school sessions, she took the extra time behind the building with a closed book in hand, smiling pitifully at the stone monument standing before her. It was untellable if the pity was towards the one sleeping under the dirt or herself who felt stressed knowing she was under there.

"Ma [3], I finally brought your favorite." She held up the front of it towards the grave. "Cinderella. Honestly, I still don't even see what's so good about it, even The Boar Princess is a much better read. It's so tacky. She literally just had to say, "no" and walk away. It would have been easier for her if she decided to firsthand."

Her lips quivered a bit at the remembrance of what happened the night before. "Anyways, I'll start now."

She opened the book flipping through the pages at a careful and gentle pace, as though fearful that one of the pages would tear off on its own, but the more she read, the more she felt a sting in both her throat and her eyes. Each sentence that added on made her heart clench, chest tightening painfully, a stroke of a tear falling down her cheek without notion.

Suddenly, [name] stopped reading.

Her voice felt caught in her throat, her knees bent over until her body was shaped into a ball and shoulders slumped almost childishly. A low whisper escaped her mouth after a moment of silence.

"I hate this story, with a deep passion."

[name] stopped herself from talking again before repeating what she had just previously stated. "I hate it."

一一一

[1] Mu qin, mei mei = "Mother, sister." Respectful form of addressing both.

[2] ba = "Dad." Shortened from baba, more informal. The alternate word would be fu qin, would be more respectful and formal.

[3] ma = "Mom." Shorted from mama, informal. Alternate to mu qin of course. You get the drift.

I'll upload chapter three very soon! Need a few hours on that first, unless I fall asleep. xD