Chapter Text
Alhaitham wasn't bothered by it.
After he successfully concluded the part of his plan in saving Lesser Lord Kusanali, He plans to head back to Aaru Village to relax as the huge hit on the back of his neck had made him slightly doozy, and he didn't want it to worsen.
He turns on his headphones to prevent people from bothering him and begins his journey to the Village, not paying mind to the vendors advertising their wares to him at Caravan Ribat.
He finally reaches Aaru Village and turns off his headphones and reaches the Village Chief's Home, he welcomes himself in.
"Oh, Welcome Back Alhaitham" Candace greets him as she plates Candied Ajilenakh Nuts on the table and Gestures him to take some "How was the plan? I assume it was successful?" She sits down by the table.
"Yes its going according to plan at the moment, I'm sure the traveller and the others are competent enough to do their part" Alhaitham says as he dits down on the stool nearby the entry way that he usually sits by "Oh and, it's okay I'm not in the mood for sweets" he waves his hands and Candace nods.
He pulls out a slim book from his pouch and begins to read, although he didn't show it on his face, he did notice that there was a faint static noise that he was hearing when talking to Candace. He assumed that it was probably his headphones that was damaged in the process of inacting the plan.
He grumbles at the thought of having to fix his Headphones by the time he gets back to Sumeru City.
Alhaitham was annoyed by it.
Alhaitham finally can stop thinking about the Grand Sage's ridiculous plan and ambition and even more ridiculous attempt in doing so that would break the monotonous but comfortable cycle that Alhaitham resided in his life.
Despite his efforts, Alhaitham still had to groan that he was assigned of having to be the acting Grand Sage at the request of Lesser Lord Kusanali, and even though he does not revere the God, he can't really turn her down if she personally came to your house to ask, no?.
So there he is, at the office of the Grand Sage doing more paperwork than he would've wanted and having to join unnecessary meetings that doesn't even interest him a lot and being unable to escape, and having to transcribe the meetings inbetween having to answer questions of Directors, Scholars and Teachers, is making him questions his past decisions up to this point.
And the muffling sounds of their voices in Alhaitham's ears is making the meetings even longer, having to repeat their words for Alhaitham to understand, giving Alhaitham a headache and dozing off.
"Acting Grand Sage, do you understand me?" One of the students infront of the table asks, clearly annoyed at the Acting Grand Sage for spacing out in a meeting "Ah.. Apologies im a little tired today" Alhaitham snaps out of his daze.
"I think we should conclude the meeting early, clearly the Acting Grand Sage isn't feeling very well" one of the directors said, Alhaitham isn't gonna dispute it hes too tired to continue the meeting by all the mindless word filler to make their projects more grand than they appear.
The other people in the meeting agreed and began discussing when the meeting will be moved to, just making Alhaitham internally groan.
There was a quiet knock on the door and creak of it opening to see Lesser Lord Kusanali peaking from behind "May i please talk to Alhaitham alone?" She shyly asks.
The members of the meeting begin scrambling to get their documents to leave as quickly as possible "Y-yes! Lesser Lord Kusanali!" One of the scholars say as they scurry away outside.
The room finally empties out until Alhaitham and Nahida were only left in the meeting room "Lesser Lord Kusanali.." He stands up to greet her "I already told you, just call me Nahida.." She pouts, he mutters out a quiet apology and asks "Less- Ahem.. Nahida, What do you want to talk to me?"
"I've noticed that you've been making slight mistakes recently, and I know you're a meticulous type, so I'm asking if you're doing okay" She walks to him a little closer. Alhaitham's face falters slightly as he remembers how muffled people sounded when talking to him straight or when Kaveh would shout when they're bickering his ears would ring.
"You're hearing is worsening isn't it?" Nahida says Bluntly "I..." Alhaitham tries to counter but his voice falls flat "I will permit you to have a early leave today and rest, but please go to the Bimarstan as soon as you leave the Akademiya" She crosses her arms.
Alhaitham sighs "Understood" it's better than having people repeat their words over and over again and trying to communicate with the now hearing impaired Acting Grand Sage.
Alhaitham can deal with it.
He reaches the Bimarstan to meet up with Zakariya as he scheduled a appointment 2 days after his early leave, the Bimarstan was quite busy the day prior and during his leave due to people still not used to dreaming and getting paranoid over it and filling the Bimarstan with unnecessary patients.
"Mr. Alhaitham" Zakariya greets him and he greets back.
they went inside his office and sit both sit down opposite sides of the desk "So you came in for the suspicion that you were having hearing loss?" Alhaitham nods, "Alright lets do a check-up"
---
"Hm..." Zakariya hums as he checks his clipboard full of notes regarding Alhaitham's physical health "It seems like the nerve responsible for hearing had been damaged" He concludes.
"Is there a way to repair it?" Alhaitham slightly repositions himself on his seat "With the technology we have it's not possible.." he sighs "You're just gonna accept that you'll slowly loose you're hearing until you become fully deaf.." Zakariya straightens his back and walks back to his desk.
"I'm fine with going deaf" Alhaitham stands up "It'll only hinder me a bit but I'll be fine" he walks to Zakariya and picks up the prescription that he has given to him "It'll be less work for me then and I don't have to hear Kaveh argue too much with me" he sighs and went straight to the door, bows slightly as a thank you and leaves.
Alhaitham is fine with it.