You Love Him Ever So Deadly | ×Alhaitham x Kaveh× |

✦ 2 ✦ Little To Lose, Much To Waste

With a pout, Kaveh whisked his look away from the latter, crossing his arms. "I do not need your pity, great scribe of the Akademiya." He accentuated every consonant with a click, the words rolling off his tongue as they stimulated Alhaithams sense of hearing.

The scribe blinked. Though his marble statue-like face remained the same as before, if Kaveh squinted, he could sense an underlining expression of confusion.  The latter curled his slender fingertips in a motion resembling encouragement. "Rent." He muttered. "And don't bother with honorifics, I have no need-"

"Just who do you think you are?!" Kaveh snapped back at him. He returned his eyes back to the scribes, his crimsons frantically bashing every bit of the latter to the darkest pits of the underworld. "I haven't even brought all of my belongings inside and you're already demanding rent?!"

His voice was loud, every crack and whine hitting against and quant and quiet walls of the room. Alhaitham could only scratch his ears to ease the earworm that this man was becoming. "Archons, you're noisy. It's merely a starting payment. Best to establish your arrival date as your rent deadline."

He eyed the latter down. After a brief moment to calm down, he seemed to uncomfortably squirm in his place. The sight of him cornered like a defenseless puppy was an amusing one, one even the scribe couldn't deny finding joy in. "What, has the project milked you dry off of all funds?" He teased.

Choking on his spit, Kaveh could only cough out a broken "You!-" before losing all reasoning to explain himself. Lost in his own embarrassment, he didn't even notice the latter's facial muscles give in, the faint tint in his eyes softening. The supposed 'tease' which usually renders people uncomfortably chuckling was his signature ticket to shut them up. But analyzing the superior's uncomfortable squirming, Alhaitham understood that his jest was nothing short of the truth.

Though his body remained stern, something deep inside of him couldn't help but feel an ounce of empathy. The sight of Kaveh fiddling with the edges of his fabrics to avert his gaze and the corners of his ears heating up in a gentle pink was unusual. Maybe if these two were strangers, his bodily reaction would be nothing short of a routine. A typical outcome of his mannerism.

Yet, this was a man he knew, a man he grew up with.

And it seems like Alhaitham himself avoided something.

Avoided him.

That's when the dawning realization, the hypothesis he tried his best to avoid came crashing down on his shoulders. This Kaveh that he sheltered in his abode wasn't the same Kaveh he remembers.

Standing here, in front of each other, without a word to say felt like a tale spoken before.

.・゜゜・

It barely thunders in Sumeru City. The occasional drizzle would shower its inhabitants and the students residing in their courses, but there would rarely be a roaring thunder crashing across the sky. That's why it felt unusual when the sound of it echoed outside the Akademyas walls. Like a siren of sorts.

"You can't just change your plans like that!" Was the first thing Akademiya students heard on the stormy afternoon, as Kaveh, hair tied in a ponytail tucked under a student cap, stormed out of the library. His steps echoed across the marble of the hallway, alerting all those lingering around of his presence.

"Kaveh." Still in the prime of his youth, hugging a mountain of documents containing all the research done in the latest collaborative project, Alhaitham followed. Though he was a year younger than the latter, most considered them to be equal, excluding maturity-wise.

Suddenly Kaveh stopped in his place, his hair whisking with an abrupt halt. "I can't believe I've spent so much of my time trying to appeal to your interests!" He fumed. The entire Akademiya seemed to stop all of its work just to stare at the man combusting into an explosion of curses and puffs.