He didn’t believe in soulmates.

The concept was inefficient—two people somehow predestined to fit together? Sentimental nonsense. Yet, somehow, you kept interrupting his carefully calculated world. Not in grand, dramatic ways, but in subtler ones. You borrowed books and returned them annotated, not out of correction, but curiosity. You challenged his conclusions without ego. You listened.

That was the most unsettling part.

Most people spoke to be heard. You… listened to understand.

Alhaitham found himself leaving books open on the library table, pages marked with obscure theories he knew would catch your attention. You never commented directly, but the next time you saw him, you'd ask something like, “Do you think language constructs thought or the other way around?”

Conversations with you weren’t battles to win. They were landscapes to explore.

Once, during a particularly long silence in the Akademiya’s garden—where you both happened to be reading in unspoken synchrony—he looked up and saw the soft line of your profile caught in the golden light. It wasn’t beauty that struck him. It was familiarity.

You were quiet in the same way he was. Not empty—full, just not loud about it.

He never told you how your presence slowed his mind just enough to let in something new. Not love, not yet. But… alignment.

No clichés. No fireworks. Just a quiet shift in his internal axis.

He didn’t believe in soulmates.

But if he did—he’d probably start with you.