Chapter Text
“Hat Guy? Wasn’t he the one who just sat around the city in the second round of the extravaganza? He’s missing?” Kaveh leant forward in his seat, giving Alhaitham a questioning look.
Then Cyno spoke, “Yeah, I heard that too. I also heard that the Lesser Lord herself was looking into the matter. ‘Hat Guy’ must be more important than he looks…and acts.” Cyno placed a card onto the table with a sly, satisfied grin and sweeping the eight dice Kaveh’s cards aside, “I win.”
“Ugh! Noo!” Kaveh put his face in his hands. He sighed and took some Mora out of his pocket, the coins dropping onto the table with a clatter, a pathetic, defeated expression on his face.
Cyno leant back, keeping on his smirk which was making Kaveh positively radiate frustration.
“But I think he probably just ran off. At least, what I saw of him, was making it clear enough that he didn’t want to stick around.” Cyno added.
Tighnari interjected, “But why stay for so long if he wanted to throw it all away anyways? Why spend so much time writing a paper, why make himself known, even if only a little? What if something has actually happened?”
Alhaitham spoke up again, “I think that we should assume the latter until we find out more.”
“I guess…but it doesn’t matter anyway, I’ll be roped into this case no matter if he wants to be found or not. In fact, it’s my job to find out which.” Cyno leant forward again, “Another game, Kaveh? That last one went great…for my wallet, at least.”
“Nope! Nu-uh! No more TCG playing for me, ever again! I’m leaving! I won’t be roped into any more gambling by you !” Pointing a finger at Cyno, he stood up, earning himself several strange looks from across the room when his chair toppled to the ground. He quickly picked it up, and tucked it under the table.
His cheeks were rather redder than before, and he was grimacing slightly.
“You mean, you ran out of Mora?” Alhaitham looked at him, unsmiling, but one eyebrow raised.
Kaveh deflected Alhaitham’s cutting words, “That’s the most emotion you’ve shown all day! Good job!” He came over to gently pat Alhaitham on the top of his head as he went to leave.
“Bye guys, see you all later.”
‘Bye’ the three chorused back.
After Kaveh had gone, Alhaitham’s eyebrows furrowed, and after digging into his pocket for a second, pulled out two sets of keys.
He sighed, putting them back and now taking out a book from his pocket (although how did it fit in there?) and began to read.
“I should head off too, I need to start on getting back to Gandharva Ville. See you guys next month, or earlier if fate decides, as Hat Guy may have put it…he sure seemed to mention fate a lot…if with a more sarcastic tone than I’m using right now.”
“Yeah, he wa- is-is, very sarcastic…see you later, Tigh.” Cyno said.
“Bye.” Alhaitham said, clearly engrossed in his reading already.
Tighnari picked up his satchel from the ground before heading to the door. He gave a small sigh, smiling a little.
As he walked through Sumeru City’s streets, he silently gave his good thoughts to Hat Guy. However rude or obnoxious he was to be around, Tighnari could see he had a good heart inside. He hoped that he would be found safe and unscathed.
~As They Talked, Quite A Long Way Away~
“I won’t…give in to…to your games…Dottore…”
“Hmph.” The Doctor’s eyes glittered with malice, “You’ll give me what I want, but it seems I’ll have to be a little more…persuasive.”
The sands covering the research lab drowned out every scream.