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1. The Time They Were Arguing About Architectural Philosophy While Actively Being Chased by Eremites
(From Cyno’s Perspective)
The first thing Cyno noticed was the yelling.
The second thing was the fact that the yelling was attached to two very familiar figures currently sprinting down the desert road, pursued by a rather disgruntled group of Eremites wielding what looked suspiciously like someone’s entire unfinished house frame.
Cyno sighed. It was too early for this. And by “early,” he meant that the sun was actively setting, which meant it was his perfect time for bad puns. He adjusted his grip on his polearm and approached at a leisurely pace.
“I’m just saying,” Kaveh huffed as he dodged a thrown plank of wood, “that form must follow function. You can’t just prioritize structure over aesthetic—”
“And I’m just saying,” Alhaitham interrupted coolly, “that if a building collapses under the weight of its own excessive embellishments, then its ‘aesthetic’ is entirely meaningless. That’s not design, Kaveh. That’s expensive self-sabotage.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who decorates his house with books stacked to precarious heights! I’d rather live in beauty than—than—”
“Die in a poorly engineered sandcastle?” Alhaitham finished dryly.
“I WASN’T GOING TO SAY THAT, BUT NOW I AM.”
Cyno cleared his throat. Loudly. “You know, most people,” he said, stepping into their path just as Kaveh skidded to a stop and nearly tripped over his own cape, “would put aside their philosophical debates while being actively hunted for their alleged crimes against construction.”
“They started it,” Alhaitham said, crossing his arms as though that settled the matter.
“You insulted their tent design!” Kaveh gestured wildly toward the Eremites, who had momentarily paused to process the fact that the General Mahamatra had just appeared out of nowhere, exuding all the energy of a disappointed schoolteacher.
Cyno blinked. “You mean to tell me that you two managed to offend mercenaries so profoundly that they’re trying to beat you with their own scaffolding?”
“Correction: he offended them, I am merely collateral damage,” Kaveh snapped.
Alhaitham scoffed. “If they didn’t want criticism, they shouldn’t have asked for my opinion.”
“You walked up to their tent unprompted and said, ‘I’ve seen abandoned ruins more structurally sound than this.’”
Cyno winced. Even he wouldn’t have said something like that.
“Alright,” he said, gripping his polearm. “I think we’ve all learned something important today.”
“Oh?” Alhaitham arched a brow. “And what would that be?”
“That some battles,” Cyno said solemnly, “are not worth raising the roof over.”
Silence.
One of the Eremites groaned.
Kaveh buried his face in his hands.
Alhaitham, for his part, simply turned around and walked straight back toward the Eremites as if getting beaten with planks was preferable to this conversation.
Cyno, wisely, decided not to stop him.
2. The Time They Accidentally Had a Romantic Date but Thought It Was a Debate
(From Tighnari’s Perspective)
Tighnari had a headache.
Not a mild, passing, oh, I need some tea and a quiet moment with my thoughts kind of headache. No, this was the kind of headache that came from realizing—midway through sipping his coffee—that he had just become an unwitting chaperone to what was either a disastrously oblivious academic debate or a disastrously successful date.
To be fair, the setting screamed romance. The soft glow of Sumeru City’s hanging lanterns, the pleasant hum of music in the background, the perfectly arranged plate of shared desserts sitting between them—honestly, if this were anyone else, Tighnari would be taking notes for future reference.
Instead, he had to endure this.
“You’re wrong,” Alhaitham said smoothly, slicing into a piece of baklava with all the precision of a scholar preparing to dismantle a lesser thesis.
“No, you’re wrong,” Kaveh shot back, gesturing so wildly with his spoon that he nearly sent powdered sugar flying across the table. “You can’t just dismiss the influence of art on human cognition! The entire point of architecture is to—”
“Provide shelter.” Alhaitham popped a bite of baklava into his mouth and chewed, infuriatingly calm. “Everything else is secondary.”
“Secondary?!” Kaveh looked personally offended. “If shelter was all that mattered, we’d all be living in square, identical blocks, stripped of any creativity, any expression—”
“Exactly.”
“I AM GOING TO THROW THIS FORK AT YOU.”
Tighnari pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would it kill either of you to admit you’re just having a nice evening together?”
Two pairs of equally baffled eyes turned to him.
Kaveh spluttered. “What? We’re arguing.”
“Yes,” Tighnari said, exasperated. “And somehow, in the middle of that, you both managed to order a plate of shared desserts, pick the most scenic table at the café, and spend the last hour making dramatic eye contact over candlelight while engaging in intellectual foreplay.”
Silence.
Alhaitham blinked. “Foreplay?”
Tighnari waved a hand. “Academic foreplay. It’s like regular foreplay, except instead of touch, you build up to a well-structured counterpoint.”
Kaveh turned bright red. “That’s not what this is!”
Alhaitham frowned slightly. “He does have a point, though. This is an objectively pleasant atmosphere. The food is good. The company is… tolerable.”
Kaveh turned even redder. “You—You arrogant—”
“And we’re both enjoying ourselves,” Alhaitham finished, sipping his coffee.
Tighnari watched as Kaveh opened and closed his mouth, brain clearly short-circuiting.
Then Kaveh abruptly shoved a bite of cake into his own mouth as if it had personally offended him and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like I hate you but with far less conviction than usual.
Tighnari rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself.
Cyno, who had conveniently appeared at just the right moment to witness the spectacle, leaned down next to him and whispered, “Would you say this is a sweet debate?”
Tighnari groaned. “Please leave.”
3. The Time They Shared a Bed and Refused to Talk About It
(From Dehya’s Perspective)
Dehya had seen many things in her time as a mercenary.
She had seen sandstorms strong enough to rip apart tents. She had seen scholars wander into the desert, convinced they could “outthink” dehydration. She had even seen Cyno tell a joke so catastrophically bad that a group of Eremites had chosen exile over enduring a second one.
But this? This was new.
“You—” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You what?”
“We had no other choice,” Alhaitham said matter-of-factly, arms crossed as he stood beside a very disgruntled and very red-faced Kaveh. “The inn was overbooked.”
“The floor was right there,” Kaveh hissed, looking anywhere but at Alhaitham.
Alhaitham raised a brow. “The floor was objectively the worse option.”
“I—” Kaveh made an inarticulate sound of frustration before whirling on Dehya. “Listen, I was ready to suffer, I was prepared to sleep on that cold, unyielding floor, but he insisted that it was ‘illogical’ when there was a perfectly functional bed—”
“Which we both used,” Alhaitham interrupted smoothly. “Because we are adults capable of making practical decisions.”
Dehya narrowed her eyes. “You shared a bed and thought nothing of it?”
“Yes,” Alhaitham answered, at the exact same time Kaveh yelled, “No!”
Dehya stared.
Alhaitham sighed, rubbing his temple. “Kaveh is being dramatic.”
Kaveh turned on him, eyes wild. “Dramatic?! I woke up and you were—you were all over me!”
“Correction,” Alhaitham said calmly, “you were all over me. I woke up to find you using my shoulder as a pillow.”
“Lies!”
“I have witnesses,” Alhaitham replied, tilting his head toward Dehya. “She saw us.”
Kaveh turned to Dehya with the wild desperation of a man who had lost control of his own narrative.
Dehya, who had in fact seen both of them tangled together like a pair of particularly stubborn vines that refused to acknowledge their own existence, sipped her tea.
“I saw nothing,” she said diplomatically.
Kaveh let out the most betrayed gasp she had ever heard.
Alhaitham smirked.
Dehya sighed.
This was going to be a long day.
4. The Time They Played Chess and Somehow Made It a Marriage Proposal
(From Cyno’s Perspective)
Cyno had played many games in his life.
He enjoyed the ones with clear rules—where logic and strategy determined the victor, where deception was secondary to skill. Which was why, as he sat in the Akademiya’s library, forced to witness whatever this was, he had to conclude that Alhaitham and Kaveh had long since abandoned chess as a game and instead turned it into some form of high-stakes intellectual courtship ritual.
It had started normally enough. A simple match. Kaveh, smug, opening with an aggressive strategy. Alhaitham, infuriatingly patient, countering it effortlessly. The usual.
Then Kaveh had pointed at Alhaitham’s king and muttered, “Typical. Sitting there like you own the board.”
To which Alhaitham had casually responded, “That’s how kings work, Kaveh.”
Then Kaveh, narrowing his eyes, had said, “You always do this.”
And Alhaitham, unbothered, had replied, “Win?”
And then somehow, through a series of passive-aggressive moves and deeply personal remarks disguised as chess commentary, they had spiraled into something neither of them seemed to fully understand but which was painfully obvious to everyone else in the room.
“I see,” Kaveh muttered, tapping his fingers on the table. “So that’s your play.”
“I don’t make plays,” Alhaitham replied coolly, moving his knight. “I make correct decisions.”
Kaveh scoffed. “Bold of you to assume correctness is always objective.”
“I don’t assume. I know.”
“Ugh, you always think you know everything.”
Alhaitham smirked. “And you always think you’re unpredictable, but I anticipated that move ten steps ago.”
Kaveh leaned forward. “Then predict this.” He moved a bishop dramatically.
Alhaitham blinked. “That was… not a good move.”
“I—” Kaveh flushed. “It was thematic.”
“Ah. So instead of strategy, you’re prioritizing aesthetic suffering again.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Cyno exhaled through his nose. “Is this chess,” he said, tone utterly exhausted, “or some kind of metaphor for your entire relationship?”
Alhaitham moved his queen. “Check.”
Kaveh stiffened. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. And I did.”
Kaveh stared at the board as if betrayed.
Then he let out a slow, measured breath, and looked Alhaitham dead in the eye.
“You’re so insufferable.”
“And yet, you never stop playing against me,” Alhaitham remarked, resting his chin on his hand. “What does that say about you?”
Cyno, sensing imminent disaster, immediately stood. “Nope. I am not sitting here while you two turn chess into a legally binding contract.”
Kaveh turned red. “As if that would ever—”
Alhaitham hummed thoughtfully. “It’s an interesting notion, though. A game of logic determining the course of a long-term partnership.”
Kaveh choked. “You can’t just say things like that!”
Cyno, already halfway out the door, called back flatly, “Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.”
The sound of Kaveh’s outraged spluttering followed him all the way down the hall.
5. The Time They Wrote Each Other Love Letters Without Realizing It
(From Tighnari’s Perspective—Again, Against His Will)
Tighnari had made many mistakes in his life.
His worst mistake, however, had been agreeing to help Alhaitham and Kaveh review each other’s written works under the assumption that it would be a straightforward task.
He should have known better.
He had two letters in front of him.
One was Kaveh’s—a dramatic, impassioned essay on how Alhaitham’s entire philosophy was soulless, devoid of meaning, an affront to all that made existence bearable, and also, by the way, his handwriting was ugly and his house had no warmth.
The other was Alhaitham’s—a brutally logical yet oddly poetic rebuttal stating that Kaveh’s beliefs were irrational, impractical, but also strangely admirable, albeit naïve, and that while he thrived in solitude, he had—begrudgingly—grown accustomed to Kaveh’s presence.
Tighnari had read both letters three times.
Then a fourth.
Then, slowly, he put his head down on the table.
“Is it that bad?” Kaveh asked nervously.
Tighnari lifted his head just enough to glare at him. “Do you know what you two have done?”
Kaveh hesitated. “...Made strong, well-reasoned arguments?”
Tighnari laughed brokenly. “No. You have written each other love letters.”
Kaveh made a strangled sound. “Excuse me?!”
Tighnari shoved both letters toward him. “You—” He pointed at Kaveh’s. “—poured your entire heart into describing why Alhaitham is intolerable but somehow also the most important person in your life.”
Kaveh opened his mouth to argue, then looked down at his own words and froze.
Tighnari turned to Alhaitham. “And you—” He pointed at Alhaitham’s letter. “—wrote what is essentially a confession disguised as a critique of emotional irrationality. You literally admitted that you wouldn’t know what to do without him.”
Alhaitham, unfazed, shrugged. “That’s not a confession. That’s an objective statement.”
Tighnari buried his face in his hands. “You two are beyond help.”
Kaveh, still staring at his own letter like it had personally betrayed him, stammered, “But—But I didn’t mean—”
“You did.”
Alhaitham, reading his own words with mild curiosity, hummed. “This is rather well-written.”
Kaveh threw a book at him.
At that precise moment, Cyno walked in.
He took one look at Kaveh’s bright red face, Alhaitham’s calm indifference, and Tighnari’s expression of spiritual defeat.
Then he said, “So, is this what they call written in the stars?”
Tighnari stood up. “I’m leaving.”
+1. The Time They Finally Had Their Shit Together
(From Cyno, Tighnari, and Dehya’s Perspective—Because They Deserved Closure)
Cyno was tired.
Tighnari was tired.
Dehya was so, so tired.
They had witnessed years of Alhaitham and Kaveh’s catastrophic lack of self-awareness. They had suffered through the debates, the arguments, the poetic insults disguised as academic discourse. They had endured the bed-sharing incident, the marriage-proposal chess match, the love letters neither of them understood were love letters.
So, when the news finally came, none of them knew how to process it.
It had arrived in the most anticlimactic way possible.
They had all gathered at Lambad's Tavern, expecting another round of “Does Kaveh hate Alhaitham, love Alhaitham, or just desperately need therapy?” when, instead—
“We’re together now,” Alhaitham had said, sipping his wine.
Kaveh, not even arguing, nodded. “Yeah.”
Silence.
Cyno had blinked. “Together.”
“Yes,” Alhaitham confirmed.
“As in…?” Dehya prompted, waiting for the inevitable miscommunication.
“As in,” Kaveh sighed, stirring his drink with unnecessary force, “I’m dating this insufferable, know-it-all, emotionally-stunted—”
Alhaitham cut in smoothly, “—and I am dating this overly-dramatic, irrational, architecturally-obsessed poet.”
Cyno, Tighnari, and Dehya stared.
Tighnari leaned forward. “Hold on. Hold on. You’re telling me that, after years of unbearable tension, you two just… figured it out?”
Kaveh flushed. “Well. Not exactly.”
Cyno narrowed his eyes. “What happened?”
Alhaitham set down his cup. “We had a conversation.”
“…A conversation.”
Kaveh sighed, rubbing his temple. “Yeah. I was yelling at him about—I don’t even remember what anymore—and he just… asked if I was trying to push him away because I was scared.”
Tighnari inhaled sharply. “And?”
Kaveh went red. “And I, uh. May have had an existential crisis in the middle of our kitchen.”
Alhaitham smirked. “It was quite the scene.”
“Oh, shut up.” Kaveh groaned. “Anyway. We talked. It turns out I’ve been in love with him for years, and he—”
“I came to the same conclusion after analyzing the evidence,” Alhaitham said smoothly.
Kaveh scowled. “Yes, because that’s how normal people process love.”
Alhaitham shrugged. “It worked.”
Tighnari, who had spent far too long witnessing their inability to comprehend their own emotions, slammed his hands on the table.
“So that’s it?!”
Kaveh raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it?’”
Dehya leaned forward. “You mean to tell us that after years of tension, debating, and writing each other love letters without realizing it, you just… talked about your feelings and it worked?”
Kaveh huffed. “What, were you expecting some grand declaration? A life-or-death scenario? A divine intervention?”
Cyno, deadpan, replied, “We had a betting pool.”
Tighnari nodded solemnly. “I was certain one of you would confess mid-argument about interior design.”
Dehya sighed. “I thought it would happen after another forced bed-sharing incident.”
Kaveh buried his face in his hands. “You’re all insane.”
Alhaitham smirked. “And yet, here we are, in perfect understanding.”
Cyno sighed, leaning back. “This is the most anticlimactic resolution to years of unresolved romantic tension.”
Alhaitham took a sip of his wine. “Or perhaps it was the most logical conclusion.”
Kaveh rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up and drink your wine, dear.”
Cyno, Tighnari, and Dehya all froze.
Kaveh realized what he just said.
Alhaitham smirked.
Kaveh turned bright red.
Tighnari stood… again. “I’m leaving.”