#also can you tell ive never thrown a single pottery in my whole life

[pumpkincanoes]

Pottery Makes Nothing Happen: Kaebedo Modern AU

Inspiration: The poem "In memory of W.B. Yeats" by W. H. Auden, the vlog "Maybe Art Only Needs to Be" by John Green, and the broken vase I found in my aunt's house. Setting: Modern AU Kaebedo. Romance-adjacent, homoerotic life advice cosplaying as a birthday ficlet. potter and artist Albedo x office worker Kaeya

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There's a very distinct smell of Cecilia when he entered his office building that Friday. He'd arrived fashionably late, only wanting to finish up what little work he had left before he leaves town. It was almost mid-day, and his office had a visitor that day. A scientist by the name of Albedo Kreideprinz, who he knows mostly casually, while conversing with others.

He wouldn't necessarily say that they're on bad terms, Albedo's sister Klee is a regular visitor of the office, and she has spent her time with Kaeya on many occasions. It wasn't that he isn't close to Albedo specifically, Kaeya is just bad at making close connections with anyone in his life.

So he greets Albedo, notices the vase in his hand that wasn't there before; pale white with gold accents holding a pair of Cecilia flowers, and asks him, "Is that for here?". Albedo answers, politely, "Ah, yes. Huffman had requested me to bring some after seeing them in the upper floor. The flowers are from my sister."

Kaeya wonders why Huffman would request the scientist for a piece of decoration that seemed so expensive, but he didn't want to pry and instead discussed about Klee's next visit. He left the office that day without the smell of Cecilia, but the sight of the added decoration is nice, he thinks in passing, and made a mental note to thank Albedo next time they see each other.

It's the first year he really celebrated his father's death anniversary; the first year he does after speaking to his brother again, at least, and Kaeya took the week off. Despite his reputation to slack off, he doesn't actually take that many leaves, and he had more than enough paid vacations to cover it. So, he took the week off, because he needed to, because he found that he needed a place to face himself without facing others.

He went to the mountains, as one casually does in the middle of September. He drove along the countryside, mind drifting somewhere between a bright summer day where he played hide and seek in the vineyards of his mansion and a gloomy winter rain where he finally left his home leaving his brother behind. As he drives to the outskirts of the forest, he comes across a path leading up to a cabin with a sign on it:

He ponders a little bit about what this means. Albedo, the chief scientist at a government office in the heart of a bustling metropolitan, shares the same common first name and, as far as Kaeya is concerned, utterly unique last name, as the apparent owner of a secluded pottery studio more than 2,000 meters above sea level. Just as he was ready to drive away and move on, because well, he wasn't too keen on making conversation that day, he saw what seem to be Albedo himself, walking around the side of the studio carrying a box of supplies.

It was not the snowy backdrop coupled with pine forest that drew him in; it was not the fact that Albedo's hair and complexion looked as pale as death itself in a way that was mildly concerning; it was not the idea of how some people, like Albedo, can get away from the same mundane job that he has, to a place of serenity and an art form as sophisticated as pottery; it was not, really, any of those, but somehow all of them combined made him stop and gaze at the figure busying himself with cleaning tools.

He was preoccupied enough, Kaeya notes, that it took him cleaning half the contents of his box to notice the car sitting just by the road; Kaeya also notes that he himself hadn't really done anything but watch Albedo clean half the contents of his box. He briefly wonders if that was creepy. He briefly considers why he was so enraptured by the image that he didn't think about driving away.

"Hello... How can I help... Wait, Kaeya?" Albedo's voice, noticeably softer than usual, broke him from his trance.

"What are you... doing here?"

"Uh. Hey. I was just passing, entirely a coincidence. I promise I'm not a stalker."

"Hm. I see. You mentioned you were going out of town for your leave. I didn't realize you meant to visit Dragonspine."

"Ah, well..." Dragonspine, at least in the city, has an image of being a place to brood and be depressed in instead of a tourist destination-- Considering that Albedo owns property here, he does not point out this fact.

"Since you're here... would you like to come inside?"

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So he follows Albedo inside. He talks a little bit about himself, he listens more to Albedo talk about pottery. About how he was born in the snowy peaks, about how his mother was a scientist and artist at the same time and how he secretly wants to be the same, about the vase of Cecilia flowers that he put in Kaeya's office at Huffman's request. Strangely, they never mention their work. They mention Albedo's sister, Klee, they talk about how Huffman found out about Albedo's side profession, they talk about their shared spaces and the vases that decorate Albedo's work floor, but it was like he was speaking to a different Albedo.

It reminded him that sometimes, he also wants to be a different Kaeya. Not Kaeya Alberich, who has never been and will never be Kaeya Ragnvindr. Not Kaeya Alberich, the government official who has connections all over the city and does his job when no one's looking and slacks off when paid attention to. No, he wants to be just Kaeya.

He thinks about this as they talk, and thinks about it some more over their shared lunch, Albedo insisting that he stays for a while if he has no other matters to attend to. He thinks about it even more when he asks Albedo if he could watch him "do some pottery", which he later learns, is not one singular activity.

As Albedo quietly works his way with the clay, somehow bringing life into what was previously a blob of pale dirt, Kaeya thinks about this enough to say it out loud,

"You're very different here from your... Usual self."

Albedo looks up a bit from his work, almost a glance and half of a smile, before focusing his gaze back down to the throwing wheel. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No." Kaeya says quickly, then after a pause he added, "You look beautiful."

And at the back of his mind he knew it sounded flirty and suggestive, but he didn't mean it that way in the least, and internally curses himself for being unable to escape from his habits, because what he wanted to say was, "I want to be like that too."

"Like what?" Albedo didn't look up this time, but his tone listened.

"Have a side that's different from my usual side. My day job, or whatever."

"Doesn't everyone have that? I'm sure you're not giving business smiles when in private?"

"Well, okay, yes. But my private life is... Kind of ugly."

As the silence is filled with the grind of Albedo's art coming into life, he realizes that he might be oversharing to a co-worker he barely knows. He remembers the reason why he's on leave in the first place.

Albedo gently lowers the speed of the wheel, and even more gently takes his hand off the bowl he's made. He looks up to Kaeya, seemingly deep in thought, and when he opens his mouth it's something wholly out of left field.

"Have you ever tried pottery before, Kaeya?"

"...I'm afraid not." He's not sure what Albedo expected from that question.

"Not many people have. When I started, I wanted to make something I can have for myself. That is to say... this is not something you would find in stores." Albedo cleans his hands in a bucket of water he puts by the sink and walks to the other end of the room, where a dizzying array of glazed and unglazed pottery is kept: vases, bowls, cups, mugs of different shapes and sizes. Yet what Albedo took and handed to Kaeya was a vaguely vertical blob of seemingly hollow clay.

It's shaped almost like a flat-bottomed egg, or if someone made a clay version of a roll-on deodorant. The glossy finish of the dark blue glaze is the only reason Kaeya isn't asking if this is an unfinished work, or a piece of a bigger shape, one that makes more sense. He spins it around on his hand, trying to make sense of it. On the bottom there is a hole, too small for even his pinky finger to go in. He was just about to ask what it was when Albedo explains to him,

"It's exactly what it looks like. A hollow piece of closed form pottery with a hole on the bottom. The shape is... not really critical to the art. My mother was more of a painter, but when I learned pottery with her, our instructor told us to make these things, he called them secret keepers. He told us that we can whisper into it our pain and difficulties, so that the body of the clay can carry it for us, and in exchange, we get our lives back."

Kaeya pondered for a bit the meaning of it. He feels the weight of the clay differently than before, but even as he rests this piece of beautifully glazed clay in his hands, he struggles to understand how such a blatantly white lie can ever help with the heartache that comes with adult life.

"My private life is ugly too." Albedo starts, and Kaeya feels like he fell from a dream, remembering that what prompted this was his accidental trauma dumping.

"I started to make pottery to distract myself from it." He sat down next to Kaeya, eyes looking distantly, as if to a dark place, pained.

"I didn't think that I would be able to escape that part of me."

And then he looks at Kaeya and gave him a bittersweet smile,

"You saw what I did with my pottery, what I put up in my mother's studio: a place both filled with fond memories and inexplicable trauma, and you told me that I looked beautiful in it."

"That's..." Because you are, he wants to say, because it is. But he knows it's different for Albedo.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. And so maybe you should share your private life for another human to see, Kaeya, before you can determine if it's ugly."

"I don't really... have anything to share." He says doubtfully, tentatively. Because he doesn't; he doesn't have a secret pottery studio in the middle of the woods filled with years of tireless work worthy of an art museum; he doesn't have a single hobby, let alone a praiseworthy side profession.

"You can start by sharing tomorrow with me." Albedo states, and offers his hand in a handshake, smile fully gentle and endearing. "It's my birthday tomorrow. Would you give me the gift of making a new friend?"

And as Kaeya shakes his hand, he notices the roughness of his palm, and appreciates Albedo's work just a little more.

"If you'll have me, then I'd be glad." He says, genuinely. And for the first time in years, he's able to imagine spending time with someone else for the sake of itself.

Albedo, he thinks, is an interesting man. Interesting enough to spend his week of paid leave with,

And as it turns out, entire life with, as well.

Though he doesn't find out about that one until later down the road.