The Smell of Old Books and Blood

Chapter 8: The Nutcase Situation

Currently, Alhaitham had two questions in his mind. The first one, how to make this god damn button work without having to change the entire code he created. The second, what the fuck happened?

He looked over at Kaveh who was doodling in a sketchbook, storyboarding for a small animation he wanted to add to the project, which was actually quite helpful. That wasn't the issue. The issue was his puffy eyes and red face. And let's just say, not all the red was from being flushed. Had he cried with makeup on maybe?

"Are you going to tell me what's going on? Or just sit there moping about? It's quite distracting," Alhaitham said blandly while never once looking up from his laptop.

"I'm not moping," Kaveh snapped back, looking over at Alhaitham with a glare. With a huff, his grip tightened around his pencil and he went back to his sketch. It wasn't hard for Alhaitham to pick up the slight gloss forming back over Kaveh's eyes.

"Something is obviously wrong. Either tell me or go clean yourself up. Your sniffling is distracting," Alhaitham tried to focus back on his work until he heard more sniffling ensue. He peaked back up at Kaveh and- "Holy shit, what is wrong with your eyes?" Out bursts like that weren't common for Alhaitham, but as he watched blood drip down Kaveh's cheeks, he couldn't help but be concerned.

The blonde quickly wiped the blood away, but it stained his cheeks, "Th-that happens." It hit Alhaitham a bit suddenly.

"You're... crying?" Alhaitham muttered with a small, inquisitive head tilt. Thinking back, it makes sense. Kaveh doesn't need to consume water. Any fluids in his body are going to be composed of blood. With a sigh, Alhaitham shut his computer, all his attention focused on the vampire. "Tell me what happened."

"It's nothing important," Kaveh stood up, heading over to his desk and grabbing a box of tissues, cleaning up his face, "I wouldn't want to burden you with my problems anyways."

"Kaveh, I don't care enough about your problems for them to put a hindrance on my life." Wow, even Alhaitham could realize that was a bit harsh. It wasn't what he meant.

But only more bloody tears erupted from Kaveh, "You bastard! Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"That's not what I meant," Alhaitham sighed, rubbing his temples, "I just meant to say that I'm my own person, and you venting to me isn't going to affect me the way you might think it would. It doesn't bother me to listen." Of course, it's not his favorite thing in the world to be doing, but he didn't mind too much. As long as it wouldn't become a habit.

"It's really not that big of a deal," Kaveh said, sitting back down with Alhaitham, tissue box next to him. "Don't worry. It's my business and I'll deal with it." Hm... did Kaveh not trust him? Was that the issue?

"Hey," Alhaitham quickly caught Kaveh's gaze, making sure to maintain it, "Just like I need to trust you with all this vampire shit, you need to trust me. You can trust me. I don't care enough about what other people think to be spreading things like this around. What we talk about now stays between us. And when I say it won't affect me, I mean it won't affect me. Got it?" There was a small gap of silence before Kaveh swallowed down the dry lump in his throat and then nodded. Finally.

"It's really nothing much... Tighnari and I just got into a bit of a fight..." Kaveh trailed off, seeming to get upset again. He pulled out another tissue, blowing his nose, which also stained the paper red. Was he just constantly bleeding?

"Well, brothers will fight," Alhaitham said with a shrug, "That's it? I thought something really bad happened." How sensitive is he to get worked up over fighting with his brother? Isn't that just a sibling thing? And those two are constantly bickering anyways. Had to be a sibling thing. Alhaitham still didn't really understand Kaveh and Tighnari's relationship, but he's overheard talk of them being adopted siblings of the sort, so it was more than just an assumption.