[The first thing Kazuha says hits through Diluc like a knife. His jaw tenses, but he holds back on his instinctive need to snap against it. It's fine. Kazuha doesn't know. He has no idea how hard Diluc has worked since to rid the place of that very same corruption that ensured his father was remembered as nothing more than a merchant.

He doesn't want to hear it, doesn't need that gentle praise that comes after - shakes his head a little against it. He doesn't want it. There's nothing he's said here worth praising.]

You didn't.

[Diluc sighs then, letting out his tension in a softly exhaled breath. He shakes his head again, puts an arm around Kazuha just for a moment and then lets it drop with a trail of fingertips across the samurai's back.]

I don't have to talk about my father to still feel the pain of his passing... or what happened after. I don't talk about it because... it doesn't change anything. He's dead because I wasn't strong enough to save him, and he'll never get the recognition he deserves because I was too much of a coward to fight back then. [The young man's brow furrows in a soft frown.]

I don't want to burden Jean with it. When Varka returns to Mondstadt... maybe then. I won't be brushed aside again.