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Kalim is... Panicking. Just slightly. Just a little bit, okay?
"Kalim, hurry up and get out your Alchemy notes."
Right! He would love to! He very much would!
Except, well... His Alchemy notebook happens to look almost exactly like a certain other notebook. A notebook where he spills out all of his unhinged, obsessive, possessive thoughts that he doesn't want anyone else to know about. A notebook that has things such as vague sketches of cages (to keep his beloved safe), stream-of-consciousness murder fantasies (to keep people away from his beloved), and softer, more loving rants about-
"Oh, for crying out loud," Jamil mutters. He grabs Kalim's bag from him, and Kalim's heart drops.
"Wait!" he shouts, and Jamil jerks.
He should have been more careful. Should have labelled his Alchemy notebook somehow, in some way no one else would think twice about. He should have done something, because now he's pretty sure actually that the book in his bag isn't his Alchemy notebook at all. Yeah. Now that he thinks about it, really thinks, he'd just grabbed the red notebook from his desk this morning, and it wasn't until later that he'd found out he didn't even have Alchemy today, so he hasn't checked it yet, but-
'I don't think I put away that other journal after writing in it last night, so the one in my bag is probably...'
"What's with you?" Jamil asks, eyes narrowed. Now not with annoyance, but suspicion. "You're being weird."
"I... Ah..." What to say, what to say...! "I, uh... F-forgot it!" he blurts. "Yeah! I, uh, I don't have- That is, I didn't have Alchemy earlier, a-and I came here straight from my club! I didn't grab it from my room!"
Jamil narrows his eyes even more. "...Okay. I'll give you that that sounds like a believable excuse. Or it would, if you could keep your voice from cracking on every other syllable." He looks into Kalim's bag, and scoffs, pulling out the red notebook in there. "Yep, here it is-"
"Jamil please don't look in that I'm begging you!"
Jamil looks at Kalim suspiciously yet again. He sets Kalim's bag aside slowly. "Seriously, what's with you?" he asks again. "It's not that you haven't been taking notes or anything, right?" He shakes his head. "You'd just get all awkward and apologetic for that," he mumbles to himself.
"J-just... Please," Kalim says again, voice shaking. He can't bear the thought of Jamil opening the notebook and seeing all of Kalim's real, dark thoughts. Jamil would hate him. Or be scared of him. Or both. "Please don't look."
Jamil clicks his tongue. "You've got me way too curious now," he says. He sets the notebook between them, tapping his fingers on the front of it. "...How important is it?"
"H-huh?"
"Just- I don't know, hypothetically, if Azul was here, and he knew about whatever was in this notebook... How much would you give him to make him keep it quiet?"
Kalim worries his lower lip between his teeth, but stops quickly at the pointed look he receives for it. He starts awkwardly playing with the sleeves of his shirt instead, still not looking Jamil in the eye. "...As much as he wanted."
"...Even if he wanted the entire Asim fortune?"
"If that's what it took, yeah."
Jamil narrows his eyes suspiciously. "...What if he wanted me to-"
"No," Kalim says, sharp and firm. "Not that."
"I didn't even-"
"I wouldn't let him involve you," Kalim says. And he thinks maybe he's letting a bit too much of his inner possessiveness slip through because Jamil blinks a few times, and looks at him in a way that he hasn't ever before.
"...Yeah, I'm looking at this notebook," Jamil finally says, picking it up again. Kalim gives a bewildered shriek. "Shush, I'm reading-" Jamil flips the notebook open, and goes quiet.
'Oh yeah,' Kalim thinks with a wince. Yeah, the first page is just... A bunch of scribbled 'Jamil's over and over, covering the page. He groans and covers his face, not wanting to see Jamil's face.
...He does eventually hear Jamil flip the page, which... He's not sure how to take that. He just curls in on himself, trying to shrink down and not have to deal with this.
A few beats of silence pass, during which Jamil flips the pages a few more times... And then there's a tired-sounding sigh, and the notebook flips shut. "Yeah, that explains some things," Jamil mutters. Kalim's head, then, snaps up, so fast he almost gets whiplash.
"W-what do you mean by that?!"
"Your clinginess, for one," Jamil says. "Or how you followed me to NRC, or how you're always whining about us being in different classes..." Jamil sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. But it dawns on Kalim-
Jamil looks... Normal? Like, he's annoyed, yeah, but he's kind of acting like... Like this isn't a big deal? Like this is just some other thing that he has to handle. Like... Kalim searches his mind for a suitable comparison- Ah.
'He's acting like this is no different from when I throw parties.'
Yes. Jamil is acting like this is the same amount of trouble as Kalim's impromptu parties - actually, no! He gets even more annoyed about the parties, in fact!
"For the record, if you ever actually build any of the cages, make them large enough that I can walk around in," Jamil says passively, further cementing the thought. "And let me know in advance before locking me up - I'll need to prepare food for you. As for murdering people around me... Mh, just try not to, I guess?"
Just... Try not to. 'Try' not to. That's... All Jamil has to say about that?!
"Anyway, we can both study from my notebook, I guess. My notes are probably better than yours anyw-"
"Jamil!" Kalim can't handle it. He launches himself at Jamil, earning a shocked noise from the other as they tumble onto the bed. Jamil's hands rest loosely at his waist, steadying him and making sure Kalim doesn't crush him entirely.
"W-what's with you?" Jamil asks with a sigh.
"I-I thought you would hate me if you read all that stuff," Kalim mumbles, tucking his face against Jamil's neck. "I thought you'd think I was... C-creepy, or something..."
Jamil sighs after a moment, and starts rubbing his back. "You're ridiculous," he mumbles. A beat later, he adds, "It's... Nice."
"Nice...?"
"That you like me that much. So I don't mind it." Jamil sounds almost shy, now, saying that. Kalim lets out a shuddering breath.
Part of him has the thought that Jamil might just be saying this to keep him calm. Kalim isn't entirely oblivious, after all - no one sane would ever love him knowing what his love entails. It's a good thing no one else has to - Kalim is certain he was born loving Jamil, was born solely for the purpose of being with him, and he'll never even want anyone else.
So if Jamil is pretending, that's fine - it means, if in some tiny way, Jamil cares enough about his feelings to spare them. And if he's not, then that's even better - it means he was right. It means they really were made for each other.