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Diluc has a hard time of saying it. Growing up, he didn't hear a lot of it: he heard a lot of I'm proud of yous, I'm glad for yous, but rarely I love you.
But he knew he was loved: he understood that, in his father's wishes, in his father's gentle pressure, there was love. He understood that the boy who followed him around loved him, that there was love in the way Kaeya took the path that he did to support him, though he was not expected to. No, he rarely heard it, but he felt it the same—that he was loved. He, too, loved in return.
But the love he wanted to express, he failed to do so. To show his father back that he loved him, he wanted to be strong. Yet he wasn’t strong enough. To show Kaeya he loved him, he wanted to be accepting. Yet he couldn’t, he couldn’t accept Kaeya for who he was.
There was a girl who he might’ve loved: he didn’t know that kind of love, then. But she, too, he had to leave before he was able to show her that he loved her, give her flowers, walk her to Cape Oath sunrises, ask her hand for a dance in her coming-of-age day.
So, no, Diluc does not find it easy to say I love you. He never had to: what he needed to do was show it. And he failed a few times, so now, when there is someone—that girl, yes, still her—he wanted to show it to, he wanted it to be known. He would do anything, really (maybe except rejoining the organization he once thought he loved). He can’t afford to fail again.
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Jean rarely, if ever, heard it.
She read a lot about it. A lot—what love is like, how people say it. It seems easy to say, really, as easy as it is to feel. In theory (in novels). She’s always known that there’s not only one kind of love, that her romance novels only covered half if not a quarter of it. But even with all the love supposedly available in the world, she’s never received the words.
So she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what it feels like to know, for sure, that those flowers were not friendly flowers, that those gifts were special, that those smiles were reserved for her only.
Jean doesn’t know, because when she received her Vision, she heard from her mother—I’m proud of you. When she became Dandelion Knight—I’m proud of you. When she became a Captain, then a Master, then Acting Grand Master—you are my pride and joy, Jeanie.
And those were good. That meant she accomplished what was expected of her, right? She did her duties right, right? All those hours her mother told her to use studying, training and studying and training were all for this. Her pride. Because she was her mother’s pride.
But sometimes, she wished to know. When her father walked away was it because he didn’t love them? Her? Her mother said their love was unenduring, but what about his love for her? She wished he would tell her. Wished she would hear it; I’m sorry we have to separate, sweetheart. I love you. Did her baby sister love her?
There was a boy who made her smile. Two, actually, but one made her smile a different way—he made the butterflies in her stomach smile too. He was like the sun, and Jean was like a moth to his flame, and all her novels said it must be love. He could tell when she was sad and would give her his gardens’ best juice. He could tell when she was frustrated, wanting to be better, and would tell her that she had done enough. I’m proud of you. Not something she wanted to hear, but his shine was blinding, so she made do.
He left. There was no letters left for her, let alone—
Perhaps she would never hear it. Perhaps it was because she was always the only one who loved, that her blood her sweat her tears would not be rewarded by that I love you she so coveted—not from her mother, not from her father, not from her city, not from the boy. The man.
Perhaps she would never hear it as easily as her baby sister who has I love yous thrown at her on top of lungs in the middle of the street. She has heard it from her, yes, and what a blessing it was to know at least Barbara loves her. But sometimes she wishes she can get what Barbara gets, if only a fraction.
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So it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for a long time. For Diluc, her unwavering responses are like rejection. For Jean, his care feels suffocating, because she doesn’t know why he does it, when he doesn’t even love her?
“Why are the knights so incompetent?” (I want you to be able to rest. I love you.)
“You need to take care of yourself.” (It hurts me to see you stretched so thin. I love you.)
“The Darknight Hero apparently have taken care of it.” (I would do anything to have you rest easier. I love you.)
“I apologize to not meet your expectations, Sir.” (Youʼre not even proud of me now.)
“Iʼm fine.” (I suppose I look incompetent to you now.)
“We couldʼve gotten to it if given just a day.” (You even have to intervene with my incompetence.)
Thereʼs no middle ground to meet, for the longest time. They grow tired. Diluc grows frustrated; Jean grows more and more confused. The love that has been simmering for too long unattended for either of them (he didnʼt know he has to say it, she didnʼt know if it wasnʼt said) has now boiled over, searing with the heat of their emotions. But itʼs a blessing in disguise.
“Will you stop doing this?” (Please donʼt give me false hope, I donʼt understand this.)
“Is that what you want?” (Do you not want me; I donʼt know how else to tell you but to show you.)
“At least tell me why do you do this.” (I wish it’s because you love me.)
“What other reason do I have?” (Itʼs because I love you.)
Itʼs an impasse that can only be broken if one gives in, and really—they are both stubborn as it is. But Diluc failed not once, not twice, but three times in showing love; and each of those failures hurt in the way it pains him to see hopeless, weary gray-blue eyes staring at him unknowing.
He never planned for a confession. In retrospect, it was short-sighted of him—as if he was not aware of the grand, flowery confessions she reads all the time; she must’ve had slight expectations, at least. He had thought itʼd be like old times, like then—they were close, then, friends before first loves, and that made showing easy.
But perhaps this Jean needs it said. He realized he might be one thing making her grow this way and—itʼs heartbreaking, when he realized the full weight of it: had she never known? How loved she is, not just by him, but by everybody?
Maybe thatʼs why she keeps the librarian close—for all the wrong ways it burns him to see them, Lisa is sweet, and gentle and loving and she says it. “Jean, I love you, and that is why Iʼm preventing you from overworking.” It seems to come easy for her, and Diluc has never been so jealous of someone before.
And hasnʼt Kaeya asked him, again and again: Tell her. Whatʼs stopping you?
So he tells her. He tells her, and it is like a dam broke out. “I love you—I always have. I love how strong you are amidst everything, how unmoving you are. I love your laugh, and Iʼm afraid Iʼm willing to kill to be the one to cause it.
I love your eyes and how clear and honest they are, even when you lie—and I know you lie, donʼt we all do? I love you, and it kills me to see you stretch yourself so thin without rest—is it because you wish to hear the city loves you? They do, Jean. They do. As do I.”
So he tells her, and itʼs not only cathartic—itʼs that he cannot stop, now. He tells her everything, like how mesmerizing the way her hair moves in the wind is, that he loved to see her carefree self back in the islands, the single dimple in her right cheek when she smiles. Why has he never started telling? Perhaps because he wonʼt be able to stop.
So she listens, and with each passing sentence she learns new things about herself that is lovable, that is loved, and it throws her off her feet that there could be so many. She might as well been dreaming right now because the person he loved doesnʼt sound like the her she knows—but she digresses. Maybe all that is true? Maybe she is loved, and all of that is loved and out of everyone itʼs by this man, this boy, whom she has always loved in return, that she has always wished to hear it uttered from. And he holds her, and kisses her, and he tells her again that he loves her, that she is loved—
—and maybe, if itʼs true… Maybe she has always been loved all these times.
If Diluc Ragnvindr can love her, has loved her, maybe Frederica Gunnhildr has. Maybe Seneschal Seamus Pegg has. Maybe even the city of Mondstadt—
Maybe whoʼs left to love her is Jean Gunnhildr herself.