Chapter Text
The matra got in on it too. Collei isn’t quite sure how it went from ‘No one can know, if Sage Naphis finds out we’re dead’ to ‘now the entire school including the school police know but apparently no one is saying anything to the sages because they like Professor Aslan too much’ in between her arrival here this morning and this late night coffee run.
It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the matra didn’t like Amal’s plan of forcing Papa to move in with Dad so much and everybody else wasn’t too scared of them to say no. Leaving Collei as their last defense.
She’s really wondering what Dad’s like when he works now, if this is what his colleagues are like.
She puts her hands on her hips. “No, we are not going to threaten to cut funding for Papa’s research!” She might want her parents together, but not like that! They’re talking about Papa’s entire field research here and making her move to a strange place. However kind the strangers in Sumeru City have been so far, she’d really rather keep her own cozy bedroom.
Nayab groans. “But it’d be such a perfect way to get him back into Sumeru City!”
Amal nods enthusiastically as Nayab hands her and Alhaitham the pita he went to get at the front of the café.
“In my opinion—” Alhaitham says before he gets cut off by Amal smashing her fist on the table.
“We have to try, Collei! And what’s the harm? If Tighnari doesn’t want to move back then he just won’t agree! Don’t you think tail-thumping romance can move people?!”
“Or those abs,” Nayab murmurs under his breath.
Collei makes a face at him. “Please don’t comment on my dad’s abs.”
Nayab turns red. “Yes, yes, okay. Point case: Amal’s idea has merit, we could just try it out!”
“I think—” Alhaitham starts again.
“Fine,” Collei sighs. “But Professor Aslan is coming along to run damage control.”
Amal pouts. “Why do you only trust him? He’s not even here right now!”
“Why are you leaving again?” Kaveh squints at Alhaitham as he packs. “Not that I’m stopping you from leaving, mind you! Be my guest, go be annoying somewhere else.” He arranges himself better on his ridiculous fainting couch.
Alhaitham sighs at the sight as he ties his sleeping bag to the side of his backpack. “I told you, someone needs to keep an eye on them. Amal is very good at her work but she’s the last person I want to leave alone when she’s got a stupid idea in her head. And it is stupid. Collei was right, Tighnari would never leave his research behind like that.” He huffs, putting his field kit into his luggage as well. “Can you believe they didn’t even let me speak?”
Kaveh dramatically throws his head back, hand on his forehead, leaning against the couch like a queen of old. “If only I knew their secret.”
Alhaitham ignores him. “It’s been scientifically proven that those thirty-six questions can make people fall in love. All we have to do is convince Cyno and Tighnari it’s a social experiment regarding relationships they’ve been selected for through the Akademiya database and there we go!”
Kaveh hums, looking at the ceiling. “Love is not that simple. There is an art to romancing.”
Kaveh’s eyes aren’t even on him, but still, Alhaitham averts his own. He swallows. “Then what would you propose?”
“When lacking real-life experience,” Kaveh breathes, “hit the books.”
Alhaitham snorts, “You think I haven’t tried that yet? I told you, the most conclusive experiment was the thirty-six questions.”
Kaveh waves him away. “No, no, no! You’re approaching this all wrong! It’s no wonder you’ve never been on a date, you wouldn’t know a candle-lit dinner if it snuck up on you!”
“We have dinner with candles almost every week! It’s just a fire hazard, there’s nothing special about that.”
Kaveh stares at him, before very slowly reaching up to rub his temples. “Sometimes,” he says, “you give me the biggest headache.” He shakes his head. “Read some of the greats. You can’t learn the art from research, but you will from prose. Just take a couple with you on the journey. They’re on my shelf.”
Alhaitham puts the last of his provisions into his bag. “Fine, I’ll take some with me. I’ll see you in about a week?”
Kaveh narrows his eyes at him but doesn’t get up. “You better get back safe, you hear me? If I only defeated by arch nemesis in our battle of the wits by simply living longer I’ll never live it down.”
The corner of Alhaitham’s mouth quirks up. “I’ll make sure you won’t be out of academic rivals, then.”
“Good.” Kaveh nods imperiously. He looks like an emperor giving leave to his humble subjects.
Alhaitham shakes his head as he makes his way to the front door, only stopping once by Kaveh’s shelf. The Collected Works of William Shakespeare and Dream of the Red Chamber are definitely too big to take with him and the Kama Sutra is a square shape that will hardly fit. The Tragedy of Qais and Layla looks promising, but he doubts he should take a tale even the title states is ill-fated. Ah! There, a collection of conveniently pocket-sized books. He takes a quick look at the red spines before taking three of them off the shelf.
He has somewhere to be.
He’s about halfway through Arousing the Acting Grandmaster when Amal slinks up to him. Alhaitham side-eyes her but doesn’t say anything. Up ahead, Collei is leading the way, happily chattering at Professor Aslan. The path is long, but very even, so walking and reading at once is easy enough as long as none of the verdant trees along the path block the sunlight.
“Have you gotten to the part where they use the tea time metaphor yet?” Amal cranes her neck to peer into his book. “That was pretty good. The best book in the series was the one where the vigilante and the wine CEO get it on, though.”
Alhaitham gives her a flat look as he puts the book away. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I talk to my fellow traveler?” Her wide-eyed, innocent expression only makes her more suspicious.
“I’d entertain that thought if you wouldn’t keep cutting off my every attempt to create a proper strategy for this endeavor.”
“Fine,” Amal turns serious, brown eyes going hard and flinty. “Why haven’t you ratted us out to Sage Naphis yet?”
Alhaitham shrugs. “Maybe I was just feeling generous.”
Amal snorts, looking ahead to their companions. “You, generous? No way. Professor Aslan’s life may be on the line here, you know? And of all the people who know he mistakenly reported the bet resolved, you’re the only one who would’ve told if you didn’t have a stake in it. So fess up, what’s in it for you?”
Alhaitham would have told. Experience and logic both say that lies must eventually be found out, especially when so many people know the secret. But still. “I have my reasons.”
He can’t do that to Kaveh. He won a large amount of money originally, and paying it back due to Cyno and Tighnari not being together after all would be devastating to him. His financial situation can’t take that hit, but even more, his pride wouldn’t be able to handle it.
This four-man mission must succeed. If Amal fails—and she almost certainly will—Alhaitham must take matters into his own hands, whether she likes it or not. “We’re all here for the same goal,” he says, “You can trust that at least.”
Amal frowns. She clearly isn’t satisfied by that answer at all, but Alhaitham is done with this conversation. He quickens his pace to get ahead of her. They’ve got quite a way to go yet before they arrive at Gandharva Ville and Alhaitham isn’t even done with his first book yet. It’s quite stimulating, really, and he has to admit that Kaveh had a point, for all the titles are ridiculous. His strategy is already evolving. He wonders what Liyuen Lover and Kissing My Way Through the Capital? My Lover is the Raiden Shogun! will bring.
“A little higher, please,” Tighnari mumbles into the pillow.
“Here?” Cyno rumbles in his ear. Tighnari shivers as the brush goes to just the right spot on his tail. He melts into the sheets.
“Yes, that’s perfect. I could write odes to your hands. Entire papers on their health benefits.”
Cyno chuckles. “Would you say they’re tail-riffic?”
Tighnari can’t help a huff of laughter. “That’s so bad, Cyno!”
Yes, getting his tail brushed before bed truly is the best thing in the world, he decides as Cyno just completes another stroke down his fur in answer.
Collei watches their surroundings as the fire flickers, the moon bright above them in the dark night. The shapes of her travel companions are barely visible, burrowed into their bedrolls as they are.
Tomorrow will be a big day. If Amal’s plan succeeds, it will upend her entire life, but maybe it will be worth it. Almost anything would be worth it if Papa and Dad could be happy together. She shivers as she watches the shadows move.
Next to her, Amal rolls over, bumping into her side. “How,” Amal mumbles, “are they not together?!”
But when Collei checks, her eyes are still closed: she’s sleep talking.
Tomorrow will be a big day indeed.