In Your Eyes: Empyrean Admonition

You Joined the Matra Training Camp

Treasure Street, Sumeru City, Sumeru

You quickly take the warm mug and walk towards Kaveh's room, you can see Alhaitham shake his head before he goes back to reading. Before your hand can knock on the door, Kaveh opens it and both of you jump in surprise.

Kaveh gasps and says, "I left my mug..."

His eyes lower to his mug on your hand which makes him smile. You hand the mug to him but he pulls you over to the sofas instead. When he sits down, he talks to Alhaitham first.

"You already know what happened regarding the Interdarshan tournament before and I want your opinion about this."

His junior just shrugs but he closes his book before letting out a sigh. Alhaitham removes his noise canceling headphones as well and leans closer.

Kaveh turns to you and says, "Rabbit, please sit down."

He pats the sofa beside him and you sit down, but a quick glance at Alhaitham makes you sit a bit farther just to be safe. When Kaveh notices, his eyes dart over to the gray haired man. They stare at each other quietly, as if mentally communicating, before Kaveh rolls his eyes in defeat.

"Just because I asked them to sit beside me doesn't mean I'm taking them away from you," Kaveh blurts out.

Alhaitham crosses his legs before answering, "I did not order them to do that at all. Why are you shifting the issue to me? If they want to sit beside you or me, it's their choice to make."

Before Kaveh can retort, you clear your throat and ask, "If I ask for both of you to sit beside me, will you both do it?"

Both men move in unison, with Kaveh immediately sitting on your right and Alhaitham on the other side. You let out a grunt before quickly standing up and moving to a different place to sit down, if they are going to be childish then you will too. Both men are too prideful to move, Alhaitham even leans back and crosses his legs in a relaxed manner. Kaveh shoots a look at you then at the man beside him, before he also settles down and leans back languidly on the sofa.

"So, back to the topic," Kaveh says as he takes out the letter from his pocket. "The previous Interdarshan tournament, probably more than ten years ago, was a competition where I urged my father to compete. I wanted to see the Diadem of Knowledge up close and egged him to participate. He did."

Your eyes lit up in excitement.

"He almost won, emphasis on almost."

Kaveh stops speaking for a while, you can see him try to start talking but stopping himself before he does. This goes for a few moments but you patiently wait for him to speak.

When he does, he talks about his father's loss and the problems that soon followed up until his father's demise. His hands shake a bit which he tries to mask by running it through his hair, a mannerism that he usually does when he wants to calm down. Kaveh regards the entire situation as his fault, he also said that if only he did not urge his father to join then his life will probably have a different story by now.

Alhaitham speaks first, "I have told you before and let me tell you again, you were not at fault. You were young, how could you even fathom the situation at that time? Stop blaming yourself."

You nod in agreement before adding, "I have never met your father but I think he will not like it if you keep blaming yourself about what happened. You shift the blame to yourself which is not right, nobody knew what was going to happen when you asked your father to join. Please don't be too hard on yourself, you are a wonderful person and I know that your father will be sad if you continue thinking like this."