It had started long before you ever realized it. A habit, a quiet instinct of his — something Diluc did without thinking, something he only did with you.

Maybe it was because your cheeks warmed so easily under his touch. Maybe it was because your face fit perfectly in his palms. Or maybe it was because holding you like that grounded him more than anything in the world ever had.

Whatever the reason was, Diluc always found your face.

When he returned home after long nights patrolling Mondstadt, exhausted and touched by soot and smoke, the first thing he did was cup your cheeks — thumbs sweeping gently along your skin, making sure you were real, that you were safe, that you were his peace after the chaos.

When you ran to him in the winery courtyard, laughing as he chased you between the vines, he would always catch you the same way: one hand around your wrist, the other softly holding your cheeks as if you were something precious he’d been afraid to lose.

When the sunset painted you gold and you two stopped your walk to admire the horizon, he would shift closer and cradle your face without a word — as though he needed the contact to fully breathe in the moment.

Even after training, when he worried he’d gone too hard on you, he would pull you in and tilt your face up with both hands, studying you with that silent, protective intensity… then softening once he saw your smile.

It didn’t matter when. It didn’t matter why. Diluc always held your face gently, as though the world itself quieted whenever he touched you.

You eventually stopped trying to understand it. Because each time his hands framed your cheeks — warm, large, steady — you felt the answer.

Diluc didn’t just like your face.

He adored it. He adored you.

And holding your cheeks was simply his way of saying it without words.