Love the mask, who's under it? (Alhaitham x F!Reader)

500,000...

only 4 chapters left my lovelies

also I wanna remind y'all that cyno does somewhat know that the hero's are alive (cyno repair chapter where y/n mentions it)

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2 days later, and the stress was getting a lot worse.

Alhaitham still hadn't made a decision and he refused to see anyone other than Gli. It was obvious everything was starting to catch up to him now.

He was supposed to graduate in a month and a half and now here he is, rotting in a jail cell all because of you.

Now here you were, voicing out these problems to his best friend.

"Don't you have a family therapist?" Cyno asked, sitting on the kitchen as he stared at your form currently sitting in the living room.

You moved your head to glare at him. "I do. She's sweet but she's expensive as shit."

"Isn't she from Liyue?"

You nodded and he grimaced; That explained how bad it was in Liyue when it came to money.

Cyno just sighed, standing up from where he was sitting and walking over to you. "So, so far the last thing you told me was that your dad is alive, and now I'm hearing so much more shit. Explain it for me again?"

You were thankful Xiao wasn't currently here, you still haven't told him about Zhongli being alive. He was on another date- he's lucky he has dates to go on meanwhile your boyfriend (is he boyfriend? did you guys even confirm it?!) is rotting in a jail cell for something he didn't do. It was Monday evening, almost 6pm and the sun was just starting to go down.

Your laptop was on the table in front of you, a website showing Alhaitham's current predicament and charges.

"I thought some forbidden knowledge capsules would hold information, so I talked to Capitano and he told me where to find them. Alhaitham caught me and decided to help me and we got caught, Azar said there would be consequences but nothing happened after 2 weeks and suddenly the day before his birthday he gets arrested."

Cyno just blinked at the information for a solid 10 seconds before he just sighed with a shake of his head. "He knew it was a risk and he took it, it's not your fault."

"I could've stopped him!"

He snorted at that. "Alhaitham is stubborn and doesn't care about what others think. I doubt- even if it's you- could've changed his mind. I think because it was you he decided to help."

That made you blush a little bit, but you kept eyeing the website, still feeling that tinge of guilt in your stomach and a baby voice telling you "this is your fault!" In your head.

Cyno caught you eyeing it. "Why don't we pay the bail?"

"With what money?" You snorted.

Cyno shrugged. "Kaveh's willing to do anything for Alhaitham, even going into more debt. There's some money left from my school funds account. Tighnari has extra money from the insurance after Kaveh burnt his apartment, you could ask Capitano for that 2000 back or even more. Miko gets paid soon."

During his rambles of ideas you put all of it together, trying to see if it would all add up to the total of Alhaitham's bail, but after a minute of doing the calculations in your head, you shook it. "No. We'd still need like 200,000 more. I don't get paid until next Friday and Alhaitham is expected to make his choice by Friday or before that."

You and Cyno both slumped in defeat. "Does your dad have any emergency money he left for you guys."

Suddenly, your eyes widened as you shot up, staring at him with a "holy shit!" Expression and he was taken aback.