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everything has changed (alhaitham x gn!reader)

ONE. i just wanna know you better

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SUMMARY - alhaitham was positive that he was not worthy of anyone's love, nor was anyone worthy of his. but after bumping into you on a random wednesday morning, he was ought to be wrong in many ways. also; in which you attempt on asking alhaitham out a grand total of three times; three different ways, three different places, and three different situations, in hopes of him reciprocating your so called love— people do say that third time's the charm, right?

A/N - i have delayed this for far too long. i have maybe slept while editing this draft for around 4 times. i was supposed to post this last week. forgive me pls

“three times.”

“pardon?”

you smiled at the gray-haired man at his desk, holding up three fingers as you repeated yourself once more. “i'll only ask you out three times, and if you decline all three of them, i won't ever bother you again. you can trust me on that.”

if there's one thing about you that alhaitham could describe, it's that you are… maybe a tad bit weird.

no, scratch that, you're insanely weird.

it's silly, he thinks. you're a well-known and respected scholar slash biologist from the amurta darshan. there's no one in the akademiya who doesn't know you, not when you're widely known for your eccentric researches and experiments. no, alhaitham definitely did not look into your work profile after that little incident. and even if he did, it was purely for work purposes, he was mainly doing his duty to report about it to the higher ups, lest he craves punishment or a lecture from grand sage azar.

anyway, frankly speaking, you should be professional, at the very least. hell, you have a doctorate. the title itself should be written all over you.

so why are you speaking to him like… well, he doesn't know. like you're a fool? a desperate moron in love? whatever it is, it's anything but professional to him.

see, this all started due to that sudden incident from a few weeks ago.

nothing ever beats the rush hour in the akademiya on a wonderful wednesday morning, it seems.

as a full time worker at the prestigious institute, it was just another day for you and your overworked colleagues. however, getting errands done during this time around would be a death wish, everyone within the akademiya walls knew of that, and of course, you do too.

yet it seemed like you had just dug your own grave.

honestly— who wouldn't? you needed to head over to your lab immediately, the specimens in the crate you were currently carrying needed to be experimented on within the fifteen minute timeline you had mentally set up in your head, so it was obvious that you had no time to lose.

and to speak; the crowds in the house of daena honestly weren't that bad— maybe a little less spacious than usual, but still merely nothing for an experienced scholar like you. see, that's what you had initially thought before getting back to your private lab.

you just need to head on over to the biology section of the house of daena to retrieve a book titled ‘fungi and its extraordinary lives’, and you'll be set to continue conducting your ongoing research project. look— you did think of snatching the book way earlier before you even set out on an adventure of getting your crate of supplies, but it would've been too much work for you to go back and forth from your lab, as it was already close to the house of daena.

you figured it was best to do it on your way back instead, which, in full honesty— was not even a bad idea. it was just that things just had to escalate a whole lot differently than you had intended to.

see— your first mistake was keeping your eyes busy on your task instead of what's in front of you. which, in another sense, is what any other normal person would do. well, you know your way around the akademiya like the back of your hand. the shortcuts to aisle number thirty-six in the house of daena, the bathroom to the end of the hall on floor two, the shortest route to the archive room of the akademiya, you name it. so you thought you could just waltz your way through the library easily. again, your first mistake.

your second mistake was that you were clearly doing anything but walking, understandably so. you're well aware of the akademiya rules: no running in the institution, no careless mistakes, no idle chit chat and gossip— among many others. right, the handbooks weren't a stranger to you. there was even a point in your life where you were forced to memorise it from a to z by one of your professors because you were unfortunate enough to have unintentionally broken one of the many minuscule rules that one time, which in your opinion was quite the torture for a mere student like you back then. you may or may not still hold a grudge against the said professor.

as you were double checking your to-do list with a pencil and piece of paper on your beloved crate, you hadn't realized that you were walking towards someone. okay, maybe the correct word for your actions right now would be sprinting, but you'd hate to admit that you were in the wrong.

now, this is your last mistake. the person that is about to bump into you is not a mere scholar, whom you can't just apologize to once or a few more times and move on with your day.

next thing you knew, you collided into the person's chest that was so hard it felt you just crashed into a wall, and much to your dismay, caused you to harshly fall on the pristine floors from the impact, along with your precious, precious crate, which is now most likely a lost cause as your specimens and other important stuff you had worked so hard to look for earlier were all over you and the extravagant floors of the house of daena. disgusting, you know, but that was the least of your worries right now.

as if that wasn't already downright embarrassing enough, you're now covered in gooey fungi, you have totally made a fool out of yourself, and all eyes are currently on you, scholars and students alike whispering amongst themselves at the scene they were witnessing. a monstrosity, truly.

you were sure that you'd be the main topic of gossip for at least a week. maybe two weeks at best.

the house of daena was silent, with only the chit and chatter amongst the scholars as an exception. at first sight, you wondered why everyone would pay so much attention to you instead of continuing on with what they were doing just a fleeting second ago. surely this happens in the akademiya at least once, no?

you've made two revelations to this; one, you were so ungodly hideous that everyone just had to stare. or two, you had probably just bumped into some hot-shot akademiyan.

of course, the first thing any sane person would do is look up to the perpetrator who had cause you this much damage. (it was your fault to begin with.)

so you did.

and of course any normal person who had just been bumped into would have thought of the same thing: have every reason to be angry at the person who bumped into you, whether they were in the wrong or not.

so it was only natural that you too, had the same thought in mind.

but the second you laid your eyes on him, it's as if the whole world stopped, and you finally understand why everyone was so adamant on just standing there and whispering about your little incident instead of helping you out like any decent human being would. and the latter of your revelation was definitely on spot. you would've done a victory dance if you were in any other situation except this.

because the person you had just bump into is none other than the scribe of the akademiya, the one and only, alhaitham.

you've heard of him a few times— apparently he's quite the reserved man, yet would not hesitate to call you out on your wrongdoings or foolish mistakes. well, that's what you heard anyway; as a mere worker who is trying to make ends meet, you are in no position to judge people based on what your fellow juniors run their mouths about these days.

for as long as you've been both an alum and full-time employee at the akademiya, it's truly a wonder that you've never actually seen the scribe in person. right, that's also what you've heard people say— that the scribe can hardly be spotted, nor can he be found easily to begin with. he's never in his office, and it's not often that you'd find him within the akademiya walls; the man is anywhere but at his working place, and somehow gets away with it because he's the scribe, whose presence is not of importance unless he deems so.

and if you are granted the position to say this; it is mainly because the higher ups of the akademiya takes great pride in their respected positions, so it is not a shocker that someone with an official title like grand scribe can frequently get away with such things.

egocentric, blunt, unambitious and many more— those are the few descriptions you've heard over the past few years from scholars about the scribe.

but out of all of the mysterious things you've miraculously heard about the man, you've never seen or heard people point out how attractive he is.

how could they not? he’s got a broad frame that could actually knock the breath out of you (which in this case, quite literally did knock you down), a set of clothes that somehow just screams him, despite the fact that you know next to nothing about the guy, tuft of gray hair that bounces graciously and looks luscious enough it makes you envious how he even manages to take such great care of it, and lastly, a pair of turquoise eyes that looked like an oasis from the sumeru desert, one you could just stare into forever, ever and ever.

this man is a whole package.

it was like the gods had granted you the perfect opportunity to present yourself in front of an attractive man, like the gods have finally decided to fill a bit of colour into your hopeless romantic and workaholic life, and gave you this blessing— except for the fact that this, this might be the most embarrassing way possible in doing so.

oh how you want the ground to swallow you up right now.

after what seemed like forever (it was less than thirty seconds), the man of the hour finally speaks, startling you with his voice. “would you rather sit down there like a fool or will you stand up?” ouch. maybe it's safe to say that at least one of the things people say about him are, in fact, true.

you blinked, once, twice, before you could pick up on what what he said and hurriedly stand up, glass jars of your specimens that were previously all over you clinking to the floor a little too loud, some already having been broken and shattered, but you could care less when the man in front of you was currently glaring at you like you have committed one of the six cardinal sins.

before he could even jab you more with his next few blunt words, you decided to bow down to a complete ninety-degree and started profusely apologizing, all previous thoughts of wanting to blame everything on him for ruining your prolonged experiment were thrown out the window (again, it is your fault in the first place.)

sure, this might hurt your pride and ego, but you'd rather do this than having the possibility of listening to the scribe giving you a lifelong lecture on the basic rules of the akademiya, or yet even worse, you get sent to the grand sage and have your doctorate and title revoked for being unprofessional, unethical, or whatever nonsense grand sage azar would demote you for. call yourself dramatic and insane, but you'd rather not inflict any chances of ending up humiliated or jobless. or both.

a beat passes, and you're still mumbling out apologies, causing alhaitham to clear his throat in order to cut you off.

“you… you can stand upright now,” he said, and it takes you another few seconds before you reluctantly do as he says, and the first thing you see is him looking at you with a puzzled expression plastered on his face.

“i apologize once again, scribe. it was my fault, i wasn't looking,” you looked down as you spoke, staring at your ruined materials on the white tiles.

alhaitham all but sighs, and tells you to look where you're going next time. you couldn't help but only nod, not even glancing at him once out of embarrassment. “you are fully aware of the akademiya rules, are you not? act one-o-three; no running in the institution unless–”

“–an emergency occurs, or and if ordered to by either of the six sages, grand sage included,” you finished his sentence with the slight of an eye roll, before remembering that this was the scribe, not your annoying biology professor who countlessly had you memorise the five-hundred-page worth of akademiya rules. truthfully, there was no need for a teaching institution to have that many rules.

then, he prompts another question: “do you perhaps need any help…” he seemed to have trailed off, and you flickered your eyes to him just for a fleeting second to see what he was doing. “amurta scholar?” he finished his question as he stared at your lab coat, a small badge to your left with the amurta logo pinned on it, indicating which darshan you are from.

“uh… no– it's alright,” you say sheepishly as you quickly crouched down, already starting to pick up your glass jars and whatnot. “you should get going, scribe. you must have a lot of work to do here in the akademiya.”

alhaitham could only nod as you tell him that, not even minding the fact that you were not able to see him as of the moment. he merely tells you to watch where you're going next time and starts to walk away; which in your opinion was maybe just a tad bit rude— the least he could do was help you out. but knowing him, as per what people talk about, that'd be nigh impossible. also, you did say that you didn't need any help, so you couldn't blame him per se. honestly, if you were in his shoes you'd probably have done the same.

so you hurriedly finished cleaning up your mess and ran to your lab, all in your splattered–with–gooey–fungi glory. as you sighed behind closed doors, you prayed to the gods above that your project would go smoothly and peacefully. fingers crossed.

well, maybe after yet another exhausting trip to the avidya forest for another set of fungi, that is.

but of course, it was only wishful thinking, there's not a lot to hope for when alhaitham pretty much occupied your mind the whole day. it has even gotten to the point where your fellow juniors had to snap you out of your daydream so that you could actually focus on your research.

sure, call yourself a hopeless romantic (maybe a crazy lunatic in this case), but who wouldn't fall for him at first sight? and who the hell cares about the things scholars gossip about him? a man with that sort of pretty privilege could run over your toe and you would gracefully thank him for it.

and, point in case— alhaitham isn't that bad. okay, sure, maybe a little too blunt and too uncaring for his own good, but he is not as bad as people make him seem.

maybe you should get to know alhaitham more, right? not because you're interested in him (you are, but that could be pushed aside for now), you merely want to debunk the bad rumors about him going around (they aren't even half as bad, just highly exaggerated and overall childish) and make sure that everyone knows that alhaitham is not just the egocentric and arrogant guy people always see (he probably is just exactly that, but it's worth the try).

you firmly believe there's more to the scribe than what meets the eye.

so, you make it your mission and goal to get to know alhaitham better, even if it may be the worst idea possible.

spoilers: it absolutely is the worst idea possible.

after the minor incident you had, you tried your very best to encounter him during work hours, which honestly wasn't as challenging as you thought it was. sure, he's not around much, but after maybe a week or so of hanging around the house of daena (stalking would be the ideal word you're looking for), you finally got to know his routine— well, only for when he's around the humongous library, but that will suffice for now.

evidently, alhaitham would only visit the house of daena on wednesdays, and weirdly on saturdays, at ten in the morning sharp. for what reason you quite have no clue, but he's frequently around the linguistics section, reading a book or two about ancient runes and that sort of stuff, sometimes even seen squabbling with a certain architect from the kshahrewar darshan too. you don't know kaveh much— but apparently he's acquainted with alhaitham, of all people.

but now that you know a part of his routine, you can probably catch the opportunity to get to know him. so ever since then, you have been, quote unquote, “bumping„ into him nonstop.

the first few times you bumped into him, you had greeted him a couple of times, and after a bit of coaxing, you somehow managed to drag him into small talk. you've even gotten to the point where you're asking him when he's free— reason why? of course, you just want to take him out for a bit during lunch break to make up for the incident you two had just a few weeks ago, definitely no ulterior motives whatsoever; which unfortunately, alhaitham kept declining because he quotes that “it would be a waste of time,” and that “things should just be left in the past.”

but that clearly didn’t stop you from trying, again and again. your guardians clearly didn't raise a quitter.

one thing you did find out about alhaitham after a few conversations with him is that the man is anything but fond of small talk, which was expected. and after countless attempts on trying to get him into one, you eventually had to go on a different route to get his attention.

so, here you are now, somehow having managed to reach your way to his office— and miraculously enough, alhaitham just so happens to also be present at the time, which gives you the perfect opportunity to raise the deal that has been dying to escape from your throat.

look— there's no denying that you are here for work purposes; you were requesting for one of your documentations to be cited and reviewed, and although alhaitham is mainly responsible for documenting data regarding the akademiya and the six darshans, he offered a helping hand during one of your small talks you had successfully managed to coax out of him.

and you did come here for that, but you just couldn't help but blurt everything out.

and it doesn't really help that alhaitham is looking at you like you've submitted the worst thesis possible. you haven't even handed it to him yet.

alhaitham continues to frown. “would it not be a hassle to be asking me out that much? why would you even be interested in me?” he had asked, and he didn't bother waiting for your reply as he continued speaking. “you could use those three times right now and i'll decline all of them instantly. that way, you won't have to bother me again.”

“well aren't you quite rude, scribe,” you huffed, retracting your hand back to your side. talk about rude; you're here for the sole purpose of asking him out. “give me a chance, would you? i'm confident that you'd have changed your mind by the time i'm on my last chance,” you grinned as you quirked your eyebrows up and down, and alhaitham almost rolled his eyes as he folded his arms over his chest and leans back on his chair. almost.

“i highly doubt it,” he says.

you tucked your files closer to your chest. “have you ever heard of the saying ‘third time's the charm’, scribe?”

“i believe so, yes,” he nods, then adds: “you'll only ever hear obsessive gamblers say that sort of nonsense when they've lost their current gamble, in hopes of winning the next round.”

in an instant, your jaw drops. “are you implying that i am gambling my love life?” see, if you look closely— alhaitham was this close to smiling.

“i am just saying that there is no point in pursuing something, or someone, in this case, when you've already failed the first time, biologist,” well, now you understand why scholars say he is unambitious. “it would be a waste of time to be around me, or be with me, for that matter. i doubt that i could ever reciprocate your feelings.”

ouch. you'll probably have to double check your list of alhaitham's personality chart again.

“please?” you plead, and alhaitham stares at you for a little too long that you eventually had to break eye contact to avoid his intense gaze. “i promise you that i will never bother you again, you can trust me on that. you won't even see my face on the grounds of the akademiya.”

he looks at you confusedly. “are you not the famous biologist with fifteen awards on their name? i am bound to bump into you in the near future, in one way or another.” he says, tapping his finger on his forearm.

huh, how did he know that you have won fifteen akademiyan awards? as far as you know, this guy knows nothing about you, the fact that he had to check which darshan you are from during your incident was enough proof.

maybe you're not the only one who is interested in the other.

“that's not the point!” you groaned, rubbing your temple with your free hand. this may or may not be directed to both your thoughts and him.

okay, maybe this was a bad idea after all— alhaitham is an impossible man. you'd think that you were capable enough to break his façade, to see the true him after a bit of pestering, but nooo, you're pretty damn sure this is him. there's no such thing as a façade. he's just… alhaitham. which could either be a blessing or a curse, if you ever manage to steal his heart. that, or maybe both. but then again, it still doesn't change the fact that he is one tough nut to crack.

alhaitham sighs. “will you really leave me alone?”

“huh?”

“will you really stop bothering me once you're over with your… shenanigans?”

you blinked. then, you widen your eyes, nodding. “of course. i won't pursue you again, scribe. all i am asking is for you to lend me your time for the duration of— uh, actually, i'm not sure what i am supposed to call this,” you mumble the last few words, but still audible enough for the gray-haired man to hear.

“say, hypothetically, what would you do if i were to agree to one of your three chances of asking me out? what will you do then?”

“oh,” you shift from one foot to another, awkwardness coursing through your veins at the lack of answer you could think of at the top of your head. “i… i am not quite sure. that's for future me to worry about, i guess?”

alhaitham raises a brow, but doesn't question your uncertainty. instead, he says something else in return: “alright, then. i will indulge in your antics for as long as you'd have me as your… social experiment.”

social experiment is just an over exaggeration, right? it has to be. no rational person says it like that.

“what?”

“i'm saying that i will agree to the terms you have given me, but you will stop bothering once your chances are up. do you understand?” he enunciates his words carefully, and you almost dropped your files, right then and there.

gulping, you nod, a small grin tugging at your lips, and alhaitham already regrets his words when you say: “of course.”

well, be prepared for a rollercoaster ride.

extra note - ok guys please keep me in your thoughts and prayers 🙏 writing slump is crazy this is the first work i’ve posted in over 2 months. that is ridonkulous. hope i don’t disappear again

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