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It was the year before Alhaitham’s graduation. A year full of equal parts anticipation and anxiety. The promise of freedom behind months of overwhelming stress in an effort to prove yourself. Though Alhaitham was never known as someone who caved into that stress, even he could admit that looming deadlines and pressure from his professors were beginning to eat at him. It didn’t help that his partner for his research project was late for their meeting.
Alhaitham glanced up from the book he was reading to look at the clock on the wall. It’d been fifteen minutes already, and if he was being honest, that was way more leeway than he gave most people. He clicked his tongue. Perhaps he was getting too lax.
The House of Daena was filled to the brim with students of all darshans today, likely for the same purpose. Group partners crowded around desks cluttered in books and paper and designs, individuals cramming for their exams. One pair of students had the gall to sit at the end of Alhaitham’s table, muttering to each other about something or other.
…of Kshahrewar… heard that…
With a tap of his headphones, Alhaitham turned up the volume of his music to drown the voices out further. He understood why they were at his table—there were literally no other open spaces and Alhaitham was apparently alone--but that didn’t mean he wasn’t annoyed by it.
…Kaveh…
Now that piqued his attention.
He turned down the volume again to listen in on the conversation. He wasn’t interested in any gossip they had to say about his senior, but he did wonder if they knew where he was at. In any case, they seemed to know him.
“I can’t believe he just went out by himself like that, isn’t he aware of how dangerous it is out there?”
“He told me that he knew the risks and was willing to accept them.” The student grimaced. “Though I don’t think he quite knew what he was getting into.”
“Clearly. And now he’s in critical condition in the hospital for it--”
“He’s
what?”
The two students, startled by Alhaitham’s sudden intrusion into the conversation, gawked at him. “S-Sorry, who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. You know Kaveh. You said he’s in the hospital?”
The pair looked at each other uneasily, as if they weren’t sure what to make of Alhaitham and his sudden demands. But it seemed they relented, and one of them continued.
“Yeah, um… Kaveh was going into the desert to look at some of the ancient architecture… said he was going to use it for his project or something. But between heat stroke and an ambush by treasure hoarders…” The student trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck.
Alhaitham wasn’t an emotionless person, contrary to what many of his peers seemed to think. He was just very, very good at keeping his emotions at bay, away from prying eyes. But in moments like these? Alhaitham felt like he’d burst at the seams. The blood in his veins ran ice cold, his gut filled with the unsettling warmth of panic. It was giving him such a whiplash in temperature that he felt that he was going to be physically sick.
“H-Hey, are you okay? You don’t look--”
“Hospital.” Alhaitham barks out, louder than he intended. “What hospital is he at?”
--
It’d been raining for the last several hours. The forest was drenched in a sickly warm humidity, the rain providing only brief relief as it cooled on Alhaitham’s skin. The hospital was a good distance from the Akademiya but he needed to get there now.
The air suffocated him as he breathed, slowed him down and made his limbs feel as though they were on fire. His head began to pound. But he continued to run, the music still playing in his ears the only distraction from more dire thoughts. It could only help so much though.
I should have been there, it’s my project too, Alhaitham chided himself, cracks beginning to form in those impenetrable walls. What was he even doing there alone? And why didn’t he tell me?
As similarly distressing thoughts clouded his mind, he burst into the hospital, drenched in both sweat and rain and the wind biting at his back. It took him merely a few minutes to gain clearance to go up to Kaveh’s room, but to him, it felt like hours. When he finally went up to his room, knocking on the door softly and pushing it open gently, only then did he let his walls break.
Kaveh was covered in bandages, and to his right were two IV drips; one for saline to rehydrate, the other for blood. He was sleeping, looking almost peaceful. Alhaitham could laugh at the irony.
Alhaitham slowly made his way over to Kaveh, swallowing hard. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down, gingerly taking Kaveh’s hand in his own. He nearly let go when he saw the man stir, but relaxed again when he realized he was still asleep. It wasn’t until Alhaitham started to tune into the song playing in his ears again that he let the tears fall.
--
Alhaitham peeled himself off the sheets, the blanket sticking to his cheek for a moment before falling back to the bed. He yawned and rubbed the last few remaining tears from his eyes. The clouds had apparently cleared and now the sun took their place. Light filtered through the window and made the dull hospital room feel just a little more alive.
The music he’d been listening to had stopped playing. Alhaitham sat with headphones covering his ears, but only silence filled the room. He removed the headphones, coiling the wire and shoving them into his side pouch with a quiet sigh. A shift from the bed and a tightening sensation around his fingers caught his attention.
Kaveh was looking over at Alhaitham with round, confused crimson eyes. They darted from Alhaitham’s face, to their hands, and back to Alhaitham again. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then thought better of it and just smiled. Smiled that big, goofy smile that Alhaitham had unfortunately fallen in love with time and time again.
Perhaps calling his senior an idiot could wait until later.