Chapter Text
That kid’s always sitting there at around the same time everyday.
The silver-haired youth that Kaveh was eyeing appeared to be a student in his first year. That in itself wasn’t strange—it was about that time of year when freshmen began flooding the House of Daena in droves. Still, most of them came in groups of threes and fours, sometimes even fives. This one was always completely alone; he wasn’t even trying to interact with the gaggle of Haravatat first years conversing at the table nearby. He seemed content to read on his own.
Kaveh had initially thought the boy was just shy, but even the most taciturn of his peers had eventually warmed up to their classmates within a few months. This one just never seemed to change. He would always just sit in his little corner and read the entire time. The only day-to-day difference was his choice in books; it was always a different one.
Maybe…he’s actually in some kind of trouble?
As soon as that possibility took root in his mind, Kaveh’s imagination began running wild. What if the boy was being bullied and had been coerced into staying silent? Conflicts between students weren’t uncommon, especially with the hyper-competitive atmosphere that the Sumeru Akademiya tended to breed within its population. To say nothing of the fact that the youth was quite small—he would be the perfect target for any bully.
If that was the case, then it was only natural that his only recourse was to seek respite in books. That must have been the one thing he could do to stave off his loneliness!
Determined not to let a junior suffer under his watch, Kaveh puffed out his chest and approached the other student with as much confidence he could muster. Then, he greeted him with a bright smile.
“Hey.”
The silver-haired boy didn’t look up. In fact, Kaveh wasn’t entirely sure whether he had heard him. That wasn’t unusual; Kaveh, naturally, had kept his voice down to avoid disrupting the other students. Still, it would be problematic (and a little embarrassing) if he went completely unheard, so he cleared his throat and tried again, this time a little louder.
“Hey!”
The boy still didn’t look up, but to Kaveh’s surprise, he actually acknowledged his presence—in a way that Kaveh would never expect.
“...I heard you the first time. What do you want?”
Taken aback by the brusque words, which were spoken in a tone that implied that the boy was dealing with the hassle of a lifetime, Kaveh took a few moments to remember what he wanted to say next.
“Are you okay? You’re not in trouble or anything, are you?”
“Do I look like I’m in trouble?” the first-year asked, still not looking up from his book. His snippy answers were beginning to grate on Kaveh, but Kaveh decided to keep his misgivings to himself. Perhaps he just didn’t know any better. Or maybe he was so desperate to keep his troubles to himself that he was deliberately putting up a chilly front. Yes, that was probably it.
“Whenever I see you, you’re always alone,” Kaveh said. “Most first-years would’ve found a friend or two by now.”
The other boy turned a page in his book. “So you came to the conclusion that I needed help just based on that?”
He was definitely grating now. Still, Kaveh kept his cool. He was the senior, after all. He had to be more dignified. “Well, do you? I’ve been at the Akademiya for a few years now, so if there’s anything I can do to make things easier for you, then you can let me know!”
The boy finally raised his head, staring at Kaveh for a few minutes. Then, he closed his book and slowly rose to his feet.
“I’m not interested. It’d be a better use of your time to attempt to fraternize with someone more willing to engage in complicated social pleasantries,” was his response as he brushed past Kaveh, and Kaveh’s jaw dropped at the ease with which he had just been blown off. Now he was affronted, and he wasn’t going to hide it.
“What’s with your attitude?!” he blurted out, irrespective of their location and ignorant to the curious heads swiveling in his direction at the sound of his voice. He was simply unable to contain his irritation. “I’m just trying to help you!”
The other student barely spared him a glance back. “My answers to your questions should’ve told you that I’m currently not in need of any help. I intend to keep things that way.”
He quickly left Kaveh on that note, as if in a hurry to rid himself of his upperclassman’s presence, leaving Kaveh to stare, aghast, as the back of the standoffish teen grew smaller in the distance.
Kaveh would later learn that the boy’s name was Alhaitham, and in the comparatively short time he had begun studying at the Akademiya, he had garnered quite the reputation for himself. Most of his contemporaries had only heard of him in passing, but many senior researchers, when questioned about the young Haravatat student, had very few nice things about him outside of his prodigal intelligence and stellar grades. Having experienced Alhaitham’s attitude for himself, Kaveh could at least derive some spiteful joy from the fact that no one else could stand being in the presence of the so-called genius.
But a single, bad encounter could never stem the flow of Kaveh’s bleeding heart, and he soon found himself wondering about his solitary junior. Surely, such a lifestyle could only be excruciatingly lonely. Surely, there was a part of Alhaitham, no matter how small, that yearned for someone close to his age to talk to. It was these thoughts that eventually prompted him to keep an eye out for Alhaitham, and one week after their first conversation, Kaveh caught a glimpse of silver in the House of Daena.
There he was, in roughly the same area he had been the last time they had met. For all of what everyone said about him being difficult to locate, Kaveh had found him fairly easily. This time, rather than reading, Alhaitham was perched on a stepladder, an arm outstretched in an attempt to fetch a book from a shelf that the tips of his fingers could barely touch the bottom of.
I thought about it before, but…
…he’s pretty short for his age.
There was no way he was going to be able to get to the book he wanted—at least, not without great difficulty. But there were no taller stepladders around, and neither were there many people in the House of Daena at this hour, though even if there were, Alhaitham didn’t seem like he’d be keen on asking anyone for help either.
Kaveh watched the struggling youth for a little longer. He was at least half a head taller than Alhaitham, and reaching the shelf from that stepladder would’ve been an easy feat for him. But then, his mind drifted back to their encounter one week ago and the way Alhaitham had blown him off, and his previous indignation quickly bubbled to the forefront of his mind again, as if he was experiencing it fresh.
If that’s the kind of attitude he wants to have, then he can flail about all he wants. This is a situation of his own making, anyway.
The disgruntled Kaveh huffed to himself at the thought, but he couldn’t help but continue watching Alhaitham out of the corner of his eye. Familiar worries niggled at the back of his mind, the nagging, guilt-ridden voice pondering so many possibilities: What if Alhaitham did fall? What if he hurt himself when Kaveh could have stepped in and prevented it from happening? It was those thoughts that kept him rooted in place, still reluctant to help, but not entirely willing to leave Alhaitham to his own devices either.
Finally, he had enough. He took a step forward, his mouth already opening in an offer to help—and then, to his surprise, with a single upward lunge, Alhaitham managed to hook his fingers around the book’s spine.
But whatever triumph he must have been feeling was short-lived, for when he moved to pull the tome from its place on the shelf, he overcompensated for his precarious position and leaned back too far, and Kaveh could only watch in horror as Alhaitham lost his balance and toppled backwards off the ladder.
“Watch out!!”
He closed the distance between them in a few bounds, a feat accomplished because he had already begun approaching. Alhaitham’s back collided against Kaveh’s chest, and the two of them tumbled unceremoniously onto the ground together.
“Owww…” Kaveh groaned loudly, needing a few moments longer to recover from the impact before assessing the condition of the boy he had cushioned in his arms. “Are you okay?”
Alhaitham didn’t respond, looking away and clutching the book tightly to his chest as if it was more important than his own life. Disgruntled at the reaction and still feeling the fall in his rear end, Kaveh groaned again. “For someone they call a ‘genius,’ that sure wasn’t very smart of you!” he chided. “Next time, get someone to help you before you try anything that dangerous!”
“...Sorry,” Alhaitham mumbled. “You didn’t have to catch me.”
Kaveh rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me? You could’ve gotten hurt! Do you really think I’d just stand there and let it happen? Also, you could just say ‘thank you,’ you know.”
“...Thank you.”
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Appeased by the ease with which Alhaitham gave in (finally, some respect!), Kaveh just sighed. “Just don’t do something like that again, okay? I might not be around to catch you next time. What book were you trying to get, anyway? It must’ve been pretty important if you were that desperate to reach it.”
He peered over Alhaitham’s shoulder at the book, which he was still hugging tightly. Rather than a Haravatat text like he expected, it was a very familiar Kshahrewar one, and Kaveh’s eyes lit up in recognition.
“Oh wow, you’re actually reading that one? I’m pretty surprised. Not a lot of Haravatat scholars are interested in Kshahrewar teachings.”
Alhaitham looked up. “You’ve read it?”
“Well, yeah, I’m part of Kshahrewar. I used it for a project last semester. I was told that it was pretty advanced, but the author really knows her stuff—you could apply what she wrote to a lot of things.”
“Is that so. Most students would immediately refer to their Akasha Terminals for any data they need for their research.”
“I guess I could’ve used mine too,” Kaveh said. “But there was a lot of useful extra information, and the footnotes were really informative, too. I probably wouldn’t have found all that stuff in the Akasha Terminal since I wasn’t specifically looking for it at the time, and it wasn’t that relevant to the topic I was working on, either. But what she included really came in handy for some other papers I wrote later on. Now that I think about it, this book helped me save a lot of time."
Alhaitham didn’t answer him, not verbally at least, but there was an indiscernible look in his eyes as he stared at Kaveh, as if re-evaluating his opinion on his senior. It was somewhat unnerving, bone-chilling with the way the gaze seemed to pierce through him, but before Kaveh could comment on it, Alhaitham looked back down at the book, his palm ghosting gently along the cover.
“My grandmother wrote this one, actually.”
“Oh, really? That’s neat.” It took a few more seconds for what Alhaitham just said to sink in. “Wait, WHAT?!” he exclaimed, and Alhaitham flinched at the sheer volume of Kaveh’s voice. “Are you serious?! You’re not just saying that to get on my good side after blowing me off, are you?!”
Alhaitham, who now seemed to be re-evaluating his decision to re-evaluate Kaveh, looked at his senior incredulously. “...I’m curious as to how you even came to a conclusion like that. I’m also hard-pressed to see how such an arrangement would benefit me in any way.”
“You…!” Kaveh took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? I bet those old Kshahrewar scholars would treat you well if they knew who your grandmother is!”
“They already know. And if such recognition is unavoidable, I’d prefer it to be by my own merit, rather than because of who I’m related to.”
Not entirely absorbing what Alhaitham was saying, Kaveh continued talking. “Actually, would she be open to talking to me? I’d love to ask her about her opinions on some things!”
“You just mentioned the older Kshahrewar scholars. You can’t ask them instead?”
“Well, I could, but I’m interested in your grandmother’s insight too! It’s clear from what she wrote that she’s on a whole other level from a lot of them. Her ideas are way more open-minded, for one!”
“...I see.” Alhaitham’s eyes softened at that, and he turned his gaze towards the cover of the book. “Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded, but it’s not possible anymore. She passed away.”
That was enough to send Kaveh crashing back to reality. “Oh…” He looked down. “Sorry…”
“Huh?” Alhaitham looked up. He appeared to be genuinely confused. “Why are you apologizing?”
“What do you mean ‘why am I apologizing?’” Kaveh asked, appalled that Alhaitham had even posed such a question. “I’m offering my condolences, and I’m also apologizing because I was being pretty insensitive just now…”
“I don’t see how anyone could have expected you to know about my grandmother’s passing, given that you didn’t have the information necessary to draw such a conclusion,” Alhaitham replied with a shrug. “It was a while ago already, so… I’ve had adequate time to adjust to her absence.”
“Her 'absence?'" Kaveh frowned. "Was she the only one taking care of you? How about your parents?”
“They died a long time ago. I don’t remember them,” Alhaitham said, looking back down at the book. Again, the sheer frankness with which the statement was delivered was both startling to Kaveh…and strangely sad. It was as if Alhaitham had had no choice but to detach himself from those deaths for the sake of his emotional health.
Or perhaps Kaveh was wrong. Perhaps he was only projecting his own feelings—his own loneliness—onto his junior. Even so, to find someone so close to his age in such a similar position was comforting. His other peers would only ever regard Kaveh with pity upon the off chance that they happened to learn about his family situation, and though they meant well, their sympathetic gazes only served to drive the painful stake of that loss, that guilt, deeper into his heart.
And maybe that was why Kaveh was unable to stop himself from speaking. Maybe that was why Kaveh could not curb the urge to reach out, to reassure, to let Alhaitham know that he was just like him, that they were the same.
“So you’re just taking care of yourself right now, huh?” he said, offering Alhaitham a soft yet helpless smile. “Me too, actually. I don’t have any family left in Sumeru either.”
Alhaitham looked up at him again. He didn’t say anything this time. Whether his silence was out of understanding or because he simply didn’t know what to say, Kaveh didn’t know. He didn’t feel like knowing. Not when his family situation was still such a sore subject for him.
And he didn’t want to dwell on it any more than he had to. He turned his attention back to the book in Alhaitham’s arms, his sunny demeanor returning.
“So, are you reading your grandmother’s book because you needed it for some schoolwork? An elective, maybe?”
To his relief, Alhaitham didn’t attempt to pursue the previous subject either. “No. Just because I wanted to.”
“Oh? Just so you know, some of the theories and concepts might be hard for you to grasp if you don’t have the Kshahrewar fundamentals down.” Kaveh puffed his chest out and smiled proudly. “But I can explain them all to you, if you like! After all, I’m—”
“Kaveh, the young Kshahrewar prodigy.” Alhaitham finished the assertion for Kaveh, much to his chagrin. “I’ve known who you were since before you approached me the first time.”
“If that was the case, why didn’t you show me any respect?! You little brat…”
Alhaitham sighed. “I already told you that I would prefer any recognition I receive to be on my own merit, so it only follows that I would treat other people the same way too. I’d rather not make assumptions about people’s talents through hearsay alone.”
“Fine, then! I’ll show you.” Undeterred this time, Kaveh tugged Alhaitham to his feet. “Let’s go to that table over there. Get ready for a lesson you’ll never forget, straight from your upperclassman!”
Surprisingly, Alhaitham didn’t resist the pull, quietly following Kaveh to the empty table, where they would spend the next few hours going over the contents of the text. Thus marked the start of their friendship, with both of them none-the-wiser to the twists and turns it would take in the years to come.