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You walked out of the bathroom after a shower to find Alhaitham sleeping soundly on bed with a book on his face. You only stared at him, sleeping so peacefully on the soft covers of the large bed while you had to sleep on the hard cold couch.

Oh how your shoulders and back felt shivers going behind it, realizing you had to sleep on the couch.

Regrettably, there were no other rooms available and Kaveh's room was immediately occupied by another traveler when he left, so now you had to share the room with him, splitting the cost equally. A terrible choice of decision.

You should have just booked another room when he was unconscious but then if you weren't in the same room as him back then, he would have obviously died out of intolerable pain.

Walking up to the desk to turn off the lamp that was left on by you earlier, you noticed a bunch of papers that you had half worked on. That's when realization hit you. 

...Besides the main work of exploring a recently opened ruin, you had quite a lot of other theses that you had to submit soon. By soon, within the next eight weeks of your travel, you need to report these to the sage of Vahumana through your Akasha Terminal. 

It was already eleven in the night and you were sure you wouldn't be able to sleep on that cold couch knowing so much work awaited you. Hence, there began the crazy stories of you being high on coffee and finishing work by staying up till four in the morning.

Unfortunately, there was one room and now two people are sharing the one room. One sleeps on the lavish bed while the other sleeps on the couch because she obliged to do so. 

Under the light of the lamp, you read through your notes to write down content for your thesis but words weren't coming to you at all. You kept clicking the back of your pen until you heard an annoyed groan from the scribe who was tossing around in the bed, pillow over his head.

You turned around and realized he wasn't wearing his headphones, perhaps why he was irritated by the slightest noises made in the room but you couldn't help but envy how he was sleeping so peacefully.

"Being a scribe must be real relaxing for you huh?" You muttered to yourself.

As you once more turned around back to facing the blank sheets of white paper, finally able to make some sentences in your head, you heard Alhaitham muttered something in his sleep.

"Go back to sleep Kaveh........it's too late..." He mumbled in his sleep with a weary tune to it. 

"At this rate, I think you should date Kaveh rather than dating me."  You thought to yourself, slightly dejected by the fact Alhaitham only thought about Kaveh even in his sleep. 

By half past three, sleepy feeling began kicking in and you were only done writing two pages of the thesis. You got up from your chair, stretching your arms above to relax the stiff muscles. You walked up to the small cabinet in the room where tea bags and coffee powders were kept, to make yourself black coffee as there was no milk available. 

After all, today would be the last day in this place. Alhaitham was still tired from all those medications he took but if we were to spend another day in the same place, work would delay. Even the ten week extension request won't suffice if things go down.

The sooner we complete the work, the better. The less riskier it would be, rather than being hunted down by weird creatures from the past who doesn't want the two of you to know about the past.

The invigoration smell of coffee eventually woke Alhaitham up. Through his half-lidded eyes, he saw you sit at the desk, still working. Due to his great experience in waking up around this time thanks to the hammering noises of building materials by the fellow architect who lived under the same room as him, he was quite certain it was too early in the morning

He wanted to ask you but couldn't bring himself to ask as he shut his eyes once more out of tiredness. 

NEXT MORNING :

Since the two of you were dispatching tomorrow morning, you wanted to stock up on a few things such as ink and paper but to your surprise the scribe decided to accompany you as he wanted some fresh air.

Due to your lack of sleep, every few minutes you left a yawn. Your body was tired and your eyes surely had dark circles beneath them due to the lack of sleep. Alhaitham who was walking beside you seemed rather more energetic than usual. At least to you.

His pace was faster compared to yours, almost as if he was about to run. Just like that day when he held your wrist and made you run along with his pace thanks to those wild Rishboland tigers.

"W-Wait Alhaitham, where are you walking off so quick?" You stopped the man. He turned around and raised his eyebrow in slight confusion.

"Are you sure that I'm the one who is walking fast? It could be you who is walking slow today." He said. "Have you not slept yesterday?"

Your gaze went up to his face that still remained less expressive but he seemed a little caught off by your gaze piercing his soul.

"O'Dear Scribe, I don't think you'll know the pain of writing theses and submitting them currently." You mocked the man who just stood before you, waiting for your tried self to walk up towards him so that you don't complain about him walking faster.

He only scoffed. "Haravatat Darshan requires a student to master at least a bare minimum of twenty languages in various dialects that are unknown to the present to be qualified as a basic scholar."

You only looked back at him with an not-so-amused face. "I'm aware Alhaitham. You are a scribe, not a student of Haravatat. Meaning your days of writing theses are long over...what a lucky man." 

He only hummed. "I could use my authoritative power to ask the Vahumana sage to delay your projects for another day"

"You can? Really!? Ehm...Wait no this is wrong. Don't even dare to use them, I'll have to pay the price later!" You responded back with dread upon realizing how packed you would be after this mission if he were to do that.

"Very well then." 

All that you two did was, walk around the little town for a while. You restocked on important supplies while Alhaitham kept his eyes glued to the book he had in his hands. Eventually before returning back to the room, he suggested something.

"It'll be my treat. Buy whatever you want, I'll pay." He simply suggested.

That's when you remember how he re-route the entire trip through a muddy pathway, ruining you precious new shoes. 

You had a smug look on your face. "Well, you do owe me a pair of  new footwear."

He clearly knew what you were speaking about and only sharply took a breath. "Not today. I'll buy that when we return back to Sumeru City." 

You pouted at his conditions but as you walked past all those fancy stalls that were meant to attract tourists, nothing really piqued your interest. Everything they sold were flashy, shiny attractive jewelry or hand craft decors. 

This was the first time you were having a difficulty in choosing something. 

"Big Sis Y/n?! Good morning!" You heard Izuru's voice coming from a direction. You saw the little boy run towards you with a smile on his face.

Seeing him smile brightly and run towards you made your heart melt. After all he was a little child who just had too much on his shoulders...just like how you were in the past. Smiling to yourself, you knew what you wanted now.

Of course, using Alhaitham's authoritative power can very much help children like Izuru live more peacefully. Sumeru indeed had free healthcare and support but it was limited to only few areas.

"Alhaitham, I think, I know what I want." You said as you looked at Alhaitham.

"What is it?" he asked back. 

"You needn't worry about spending money on this one, I'm sure this wish can be fulfilled by your Authority as a scribe who aids the Grand Sage." You said as you leaned towards his ears and whispered your wish.

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END

A/n : This chapter took forever for me to write but anyway, Hope you enjoyed the chapter!! Things about to go down soon lol 

Thank you for the 60K READS!! That's a huge number, I feel like I'll be hurting a lot of people this time haha okay bye.