[He doesn't say anything at all for a couple of minutes. His voice feels stuck in his throat, held there by the admission he had just made - the first person he had ever told. Kaeya knew, but Kaeya was there. Diluc's expression is almost unreadable, his gaze unsteady as it stays fixed on where their hands are touching.

Strange, how Kazuha could become such a trusted part of his life that he could allow him to know something like that.

But he hadn't told him to gain comfort. He had said it so that Kazuha would understand the true heights of his hatred of the Fatui. Of everything they had done to his family, and to him.]

... It does. [He replies quietly, shaking his head.] It does, and it has ever since it happened. My ambitions died that day, Kazuha. All I had ever wanted to do in my life was make my father proud.

[It's likely that he would have left Mondstadt even without the response that the Knights inspector had had to the incident, but perhaps not in so dramatic a fashion. Even now, though... they had never investigated it, and he had kept his silence about what had truly happened that day.]

The Delusion... did something to him. When he used it against Ursa. I knew that he was dying and that it wasn't going to be quick, or painless. He knew it too. So, I...

[He goes quiet again. Still. Brings up the hand that isn't curled around Kazuha's to swiftly brush a hot, damp track off his cheek before it falls too far.

Sniffs slightly.]

It was the right thing to do. The merciful thing to do. But it changed me. That whole day changed me.