The silence of the apartment is a language you’ve both become fluent in. It’s not a hostile silence, not exactly. It’s the quiet of two people orbiting the same sun on different paths. Alhaitham loves you. He’s promised you this, in his own way. His love isn't written in grand gestures or whispered sonnets; it’s in the meticulous, quiet logistics of your shared life. He works his nine-to-five so you don't have to, a fact he states with the same flat finality as he might read a line from a textbook. It is his contract, his proof. You are his most important project, his most logical decision.

And you, you are a creature of a different text. Your love is written in the desire to reach out, to brush a stray hair from his forehead, to intertwine your fingers while reading on the couch, and to feel the solid, real warmth of him against you. Sometimes you watch him, this brilliant, beautiful man, and wonder how your heart, which wants to shout its affection from the rooftops, found a home in someone whose own heart resides in a soundproofed library.

You try. You try so hard to speak his language. You respect the boundaries he’s built like fortress walls. You don't push. You don't beg. You translate your need for touch into acts of service—a hot meal waiting when he walks in, the water for his bath drawn at the perfect temperature, and his clothes for tomorrow laid out with precision. He accepts it all with a quiet nod and a soft "Thank you," and you try to pour all the affection you can’t physically give into those tasks.

But some days, the quiet is louder than others. Some days, the logical, analytical love he offers feels like a beautiful, polished stone—solid, valuable, but cold to the touch. Today was one of those days. A deep, aching emptiness had settled in your chest, a hollow that only his touch could fill. You needed it, not his reasoned care, but his unreasoned, illogical, human embrace.

The evening passed in your usual routine. Dinner. The bath. The quiet rustle of pages as he read. You waited until the lights were out and the moon cast silver lines across the bedsheets. You took a breath, gathering your courage, and then you moved. You curled into his side, moulding your body against the firm line of his back. You nuzzled your face into the space between his shoulder blades, breathing in the clean, familiar scent of him—parchment and sandalwood. You pressed your lips there, a soft, lingering kiss against his skin, a silent prayer.

His entire body went rigid. The comfortable rhythm of his breathing hitched. The silence stretched, taut and painful, for what felt like an eternity. You could feel the war waging within him, the logical mind scrambling to process this illogical, emotional input. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and carefully measured, an attempt to be gentle that somehow made the words cut deeper.

"Please, move back. Your body temperature is significantly higher than mine, and it's disrupting my ability to regulate my own. This proximity is… inefficient for rest."