[ID: a digital drawing of sklonda, pok and riz gukgak from fantasy high. sklonda is sitting in an armchair and holding newborn riz, her head angled slightly back and leaned up against pok's. pok is leaning over the back of the armchair, face pressed half against sklonda's and half against her hair. he's hugging sklonda, one hand at the nape of her neck and the other leaned against riz's little head. riz is holding pok's index finger with his tiny claw as he sleeps. everyone's eyes are closed and pok and sklonda are smiling. End ID]
living for alhaitham's inherent curiosity about kaveh being the catalyst for an odd textual mystery...??
he already read the Very Bad novel in the house of daena before kaveh got hold of it? but then seeing it in their study and knowing kaveh must have checked it out, he... opened it anyway despite already knowing the contents?? 1) because he knew kaveh wouldn't mind, and 2) because he was curious what kaveh thought about it?? considering that he knows kaveh makes annotations in books??
he saw kaveh circle the killer's name in permanent ink, effectively spoiling the novel, no matter how terrible, and joined in by circling a name to create a red herring, but also because he thought circling names was funny <3
he put the book in the same place in the study and didn't say anything to kaveh when kaveh went to return it, and kaveh went about believing alhaitham knew nothing about it, until the quest comes full circle and kaveh returns to alhaitham to tell him the news, only to find out that he and alhaitham were jointly the instigators for the conspiracy.
the quest is THEIR fault!! but.. the conspiracy wouldn't have happened if alhaitham hadn't made the second circle,, so… if he hadn't been curious about something that occupied kaveh's time..., that’s so !!??