#dckz isn't named dckz sorry

[bumbleklee]

the date

masterlist | 1k prompt masterlist | family series

prompt: your roommate wins a competition for a date with kaeya alberich except...who the fuck is kaeya alberich? [based off this]

pairings: kaeya x gn!reader

warnings: some cursing, 2.5k words

You’re woken up at six in the morning to the incessant sound of fingers tapping against keys from the bunk bed above you. In your groggy state, you manage to kick the flat boards underneath the bed. “God, Lumine, do you even know what time it is?”

“It’s six in the morning,” Your roommate answers matter-of-factly. “But it’s eleven in the morning in England.”

You process her words, “Okay…?”

Lumine peels herself away from her keyboard to dip her head over the side of the bed, “Meaning they’re about to announce who won the Kaeya Alberich date!”

“Who the fuck is Kaeya Alberich?”

“Who the fuck is Kaeya Alberich?” Lumine closes her laptop and sends it down onto your own bed. She then climbs the ladder halfway before launching herself directly on top of you. You can barely groan before she’s rolling off of you and reopening her laptop. “Kaeya Alberich the bassist in [band name] — come on Y/N, we’ve been over this before!”

You blink slowly. Lumine was obsessed with a million different bands, how were you supposed to remember this specific one? You try to wrack your brain for any mentions of the performer of the band but nothing comes to you.

“I signed you up,” She continued casually. “You and Kaeya would get along so great.”

“What? Why me?” You finally sit up, accepting the fact that you won’t be going back to sleep anytime soon. “They’re your favorite band.”

Lumine flaunts heart-eyes at her screen, “My heart belongs to Ajax. I could never cheat on him.”

You want to remind your roommate you can’t cheat on someone you’re not with but with the way her eyes light up about the mention of the singer, you can’t bear to break her heart. Besides, you’re a good friend and Lumine is clearly excited so you can pretend to be excited too, at least, for like, a few minutes.

“They sent me a passcode to my email and in —” Lumine checks the time “ —ten minutes, this screen will change and a bunch of letters will pop up on screen. If my passcode matches theirs, then we won.”

“Hm,” You say. “Did you spend any money?”

Lumine shakes her head, “No money.”

You’re glad. Last time Lumine entered a contest revolving around a band, she spent three hundred dollars on a chance to get a signed blanket (spoiler: she didn’t win).

You zone out of the next ten minutes. You’re stuck in a state of exhaustion and awakeness and from the angle your head is at, you can see Lumine live-Tweeting from her laptop. You don’t expect Lumine to win. Honestly, you don’t expect anyone to win. Or maybe a bot will win. Either way, it won’t be Lumine and soon you can go back to sleep…

“OH MY GOD.”

“What?”

“I — you — I won the contest!”

You blink a few times and pick your head up. “You did?”

“You’re going on a date with Kaeya Alberich!”

“I am?”

Lumine is practically bouncing in her seat. There’s a huge smile on her face and you squint your eyes in the dark bedroom, seeing animated confetti being thrown across her laptop screen. There’s a mess of a word on the screen and Lumine is taking a video of it.

You don’t really want to go on a date with Kyle Alberich…no, Kaeya Alberich. But Lumine has already made it clear that she won’t go on the date because of her celebrity-boyfriend-that-doesn’t-know-she-exists. You wonder if you can sell the date and chuckle to yourself. ‘Want a date with Kaeya Alberich? I’ll give it to you for five dollars and an order of crab rangoons.’

“Y/N, are you listening to me?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. What was that?”

“I said,” Lumine rolls her eyes at you, “They’ll be in contact with all of the details this week and the date will be sometime next month.”

“Oh, great,” You say. “Can I go back to bed now?”

When you’ve convinced Lumine that she can celebrate winning the contest later and that you both need to get some more sleep to conquer the day, you find yourself scrolling on your phone. His name, Kaeya Alberich, is trending on Twitter so you open the tag. There’s a million different photos of him from fan-pages and you spend a little too much time staring at each one. You’re not a shallow person, Kaeya is attractive. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you’d have to be stupid to turn down the date.

But you don’t even know Kaeya. He might be a total asshole.

(Lumine says he isn’t but what does she know? She thinks any man that breathes in her direction is husband-material.)

An hour later, you’re utterly fucked.

You shouldn’t have fallen down into the rabbit hole that’s Kaeya Alberich. You should have just ended with the assumption that he’s an asshole and you could pass on the date to some superfan and wipe your hands clean. Instead, you have seventeen tabs open on your own laptop and you’ve watched an hour of [band name] interviews on YouTube. Their albums have been playing in the background and you’ve stopped yourself from bouncing your foot more than one.

There’s no way to get around it: Kaeya Alberich is drop-dead gorgeous, extremely witty and charming, and suddenly you wouldn’t mind being his arm candy for a night.

Lumine sets up the date for you, which you’re grateful for mostly because you didn’t know what to say to the talent agency. And by the end of the week, the date is set for next month. You don’t get anymore information than that, only an access-pass to the agency and a time.

You spend the next few weeks diving into Kaeya Alberich even more. You probably know more about him than Lumine now — and that’s saying a lot. He seems like a national treasure, he really does, and you cross your fingers that’s not just a persona.

He has a cat. That means something, right?

When the day of the date rolls around, Lumine is more anxious than you are. She spends an hour picking out what you’re going to wear (“Kaeya likes the color blue, here’s a blue shirt”) and how you’re going to do you’re hair (“you want to keep it off your face so Kaeya can look into your eyes as many times as possible”) and even coaching you on how to act (“don’t fangirl too hard, Kaeya might get turned off”).

The drive to the talent agency is an hour long and you would be lying if you said you weren’t glad when Lumine finally parked outside the building. You loved her, you really did, but all she was doing was making you nervous. You take a deep breath and get out of the car, heading into the building.

Your fingers clasp around the access-pass, which you printed in black-and-white from the library that morning, and take in your surroundings. You’ve never been in a talent agency before but you weren’t expecting such…a normal building. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought this was a normal office building.

“Can I help you?”

You turn to the reception and an older woman smiles warmly at you.

“Oh, um, I’m here for…a date?” You hold up the access-pass and figure showing her what you were there for might be easier.

The woman’s face lights up, “You’re right on time! Let me tell everyone you’re here.” She picks up the phone on her desk and presses a button, waiting a moment before speaking into it. She’s talking quietly and you can barely hear her. “They’ll be down shortly. You can have a seat, sweetheart.”

You’re feeling nervous and excited and mostly terrified for this date. You’ve never been this nervous for a date before, so why was this particular one riling you up? Was it because the other person was famous?

“Hi.”

And there he is.

“You must be Y/N.”

Kaeya Alberich is so much prettier in person, so much that you’re suddenly a firm believer that pictures and videos don’t do him justice.

“Hi, yeah,” You say, standing up quickly. “Um, I’m Y/N. Sorry, you already know that.”

He laughs.

He fucking laughs and you think you’re going to explode.

“I’m Kaeya,” He says. “But you already knew that.” He looks over his shoulder to his, presumably, management and says, “I’ve got it from here. I’ll text you if anything happens.” And just like that, you’re alone with Kaeya Alberich.

You fiddle with the hem of your shirt, “Did you have anything planned?”

Kaeya shrugs his shoulders, “Not really. I figured I would let you choose.”

Oh great. You ponder the opportunity for a minute, “Do you want to get Chinese food?”

“This is your hometurf, lead the way.” You don’t have the heart to tell him you don’t live around here.

You start walking to the parking lot before you abruptly stop in the middle of the road. Kaeya bumps into the back of your heels and you turn around with tight lips. “I can’t drive,” You say flatly, “And I’m guessing you don’t have a car around here.”

“You’ve guessed correctly.”

You rub the back of your neck. The date is going south already.

“We can walk somewhere,” Kaeya adds, “I don’t mind.”

You drum your fingers against your thighs, “Alright. Let’s walk.”

So, you do. The nice thing about where the talent agency is located is that there is a downtown area nearby. Of course, it would have been nicer to drive to it, but the twenty minute walk isn’t horrible. Besides, there’s never a lull in the conversation with Kaeya.

“So, tell me about yourself,” Kaeya continues.

“Cliche much?” You say and Kaeya chuckles. “About myself? Hm…I’m a student at Howard, it’s a college nearby, and…I like going for long walks on the beach.”

“And you want to call me cliche?”

You shrug playfully, “What can I say? I’m a simple human. What about you?”

“I’m sure you know everything about me already,” Kaeya answers and you don’t miss the tinge of sadness in his voice.

“I’m sure I don’t,” You challenge.

“Alright,” Kaeya says, a crooked smile forming on his face. “Name’s Kaeya and I like butter pecan ice cream and going to the movies.”

“Interesting,” You say curiously. Going to the movies sounds fun. “See? I didn’t know that about you.”

Kaeya stretches his arms, “Don’t judge me now that you know my deepest secrets.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Talking with Kaeya is easy — much easier than you thought it was going to be. You learn a lot about him that you wouldn’t be able to find in some online interview, like how Kaeya is bitter towards his management for a multitude of reasons and actually doesn’t get along great with his one bandmate, Diluc.

You find a pizza parlor in town and it’s not the nicest place, but neither of you seem to mind. And despite acting like he had a figure to keep, Kaeya can eat.

“Pizza is my favorite food,” Kaeya says after ordering three separate pies. “But Zhongli can’t eat gluten or lactose, so I rarely get to have it when we’re all together.”

You nod your head and let Kaeya talk. You like his voice.

“Have you listened to our new record?”

“Yes,” You say quickly, almost too-quickly, “I love it.”

Kaeya grins. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” You feel yourself wavering slightly. Kaeya looks ecstatic and it’s not like you’re lying about the record, but you can’t help but feel like you’re lying about everything else. “I feel like I should tell you something.”

Kaeya cocks his head at you curiously, “Please don’t tell me you’ve been stalking me for the past three years and this was your big break to kidnap me?”

“What? No,” You laugh loudly and it reaches your eyes. When you’ve regained your breath you sigh, “I didn’t know who you were up until a month ago. My roommate entered the competition because she wanted us to meet or something. She said, and I quote, we would be great together.”

Kaeya snorts, clearly amused. “Your roommate wasn’t wrong about that,” He says. Before you can answer, he adds, “So, did you look me up or something?”

“Or something…” You trail off, feeling a bit embarrassed. You don’t want to admit how much you looked Kaeya up to prepare yourself for this date.

“Are you having a good time, at least?” He continues, “I’d hate for you to go all this way just to go on a date with a guy you don’t care about and have a horrible time.” Kaeya looks amused the whole time.

“I am,” You say honestly.

“That’s good news for me,” Kaeya answers, “Because I’m having a good time, too.”

A waiter brings over the pizzas and Kaeya dives into one of them, his face lighting up. You grab a slice and try to process what he’s telling you. He scarfs down two slices of pizza before you’ve even touched yours.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, no,” You assure him. That’s not it. The pizza is fine, it’s great even, it’s just the fact that Kaeya Alberich is enjoying himself on a date with you.

“Did I make you uncomfortable?”

You look up, “No, you didn’t. What made you think that?”

“You just went kind of quiet. I thought maybe I weirded you out.”

“You didn’t do anything,” You explain, “I’m just…surprised you’re having a good time.”

“Should I not be?” Kaeya raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” You say, “Do you have to say you’re having a good time for publicity or something?”

Kaeya shakes his head, “Of course not. I’m really having a good time. You’re great.” He reaches across the table and wraps his large hand around your closed one, squeezing your fist once. “We’re eating pizza and having a conversation like humans. Makes me want to ask you out on a real date.”

You stare, “What do you mean ‘a real date’?”

“You know,” Kaeya says, “Like a normal date. Not one that’s through a contest.”

“Oh.”

“Is that something you’d want to do with me?” Kaeya wonders, his voice sounding shy.

You shrug, “I wouldn’t mind it.”

“Then it’s settled,” Kaeya grins, “What are you doing next weekend?”

You pretend to check the calendar app on your phone and dramatically tap your chin, “Hm…I think I’m going on a date with Kaeya Alberich.”

taglist (to be added)

@x-zho​ @makamarieaika​ @myaaki​ @skauxsa​ @kaz3yo​ @bookuya​ @angryhope​ @lordbugs​ @sleepykitty21​ @noctua-koi​ @byul-park​ @dazaisfavgf​ @antsn​