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[justscribing]

USERNAME: Alhaitham ALHAITHAM GENSHIN IMPACT TEXT • AUDIO • VIDEO • ACTION • OVERFLOW

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text. @kaveh

[fussiest]

Tighnari's agreed to be our arbiter, so you hardly have any way out of this now.
Three packs of mint seeds for each of us. Time frame's a month to see results. Fair?

[justscribing]

What made you think I would try to find a way out of it?

That's fair. We'll use the same planters and soil as well. Did you ask Tighnari for best practices with mint?

[fussiest]

Of course not. If I had asked for pointers, you would have accused me of cheating. If there's anything Tighnari wants to share with us to keep his sanity and also the number of plants we collectively murder low, he will teach us both when we are both present and accounted for, and with your noise-cancelling hearphones off.
I have the planters and soil, and I also have watering cans. From what I understand, we will use small pots first for the germination phase, and if the mint plants get too large and unwieldy, there are these wooden flowerbeds that work well to allow the plants to set roots.
The balcony is a fine place for them to get sun. Aside from the same starting conditions, however, everything else is based on our unique approach to tending the thing. Agreed?

[justscribing]

Are you suggesting all of them will be kept on my balcony? [Because he's not running all the way to Kaveh's every day. He's seen the state of it now.] Given the different lighting conditions between our apartments. If so, then that's agreeable to me.

[fussiest]

[ oh, right, kaveh thinks, belatedly - they are no longer living together. the beat lasts. ]

Wait, why do I have to constantly go to your place?
Come to mine. My balcony is larger, and I won't feel depressed having to stare at your bare walls more than I have to.

[justscribing]

Last I checked your place looked barely liveable. Unless you'd finally cleared your living room to something actually functional?

Besides, I don't have a key to your apartment and you don't abide by enough of a schedule to rely on you being there.

[fussiest]

It's a work in progress! I've two walls to knock down, and I've been very busy, thank you very much. That does not make my balcony any less effective for plants to grow on.

[ ... ]

And you found my spare key well enough, didn't you?

[justscribing]

I didn't realize you were making such permanent alternations already. [He wonders if trying to break down apartments will reset...]

I did. Can I keep it? Your puzzle isn't as interesting the second time.

[fussiest]

That puzzle wasn't meant to be repeated!
Just take it. I can cast another key; there are materials enough to work with. I don't want you fiddling with the paneling of my door excessively because otherwise I'll have to replace the whole thing, and I just got it exactly the way I like it.
Again, I repeat: what's wrong with my balcony for the mint plants? I refuse to take your general laziness as a reason!

[justscribing]

Then I'll come collect it later.

[But laziness is the whole reason. Doesn't Kaveh come barging in enough times anyway? As if he needs another excuse to stay in Alhaitham's when his own apartment is a hurricane of half-completed ideas.]

Won't you just use my visitations as a reminder to actually take care of your mint plants? We can't interfere with each other's cultivation when the question is who is a better gardener.

[fussiest]

Oh, the lip on you. Isn't it the same the other way around? My arrival at your apartment will clue you in on just how often you need to water that thing. That's an unfair advantage given how I had to experiment with our mint plant in the first place.
We'll have to comprise. I propose a set schedule. We visit only during those times. At the very minimum, it prevents us from muddying each other's results.

[justscribing]

The difference between my apartment and yours is that I don't need any help with remembering a schedule. You do.

You're going to avoid your own apartment except on the schedule of monitoring your mint plants?

[fussiest]

Hey! I'm not that bad. I keep a schedule - you just don't know what it is.

[ and the crux of the matter: sometimes kaveh doesn't even know what that schedule is. but!!! ]

But I see where you are going with this line of questioning. In that case, no matter where these mint plants are, we will run into the same issue - whoever stays with the plants more often has an advantage.

[justscribing]

Since you've already worked out this much of the experiment, surely you can figure out a solution to that as well.

[fussiest]

And what exactly are you contributing to it?

[justscribing]

You want my solution to the location of this?

Obviously one of us will have to move for a month. But it isn't going to be me.

[fussiest]

You realise that that was the one solution I wasn't interested in proposing, because I know how it's going to end.
The counter proposal: we have our plants on our respective balconies, separately, and you can live with the knowledge that your choice for inferior lighting is going to kill yours.

[justscribing]

[The ending that Kaveh has to find a new apartment or the ending that he inevitably winds up in Alhaitham's.]

Removing a significant control factor makes the whole experiment pointless.

What about a third location?

[fussiest]

I highly doubt the experimenters here are finished picking out their experimentees from other universes, nor are they interested in building new buildings. Using up limited housing resources for this? No way.

[ a beat. and then, finally: ]

I know you haven't done anything to that spare room of yours.

[justscribing]

There's no point converting it to a study when I don't have any books to fill it with.

[It remains exactly as it has been. He's even spared it the ugly decorations.]

[fussiest]

Then, I'm using it.

1/2

[justscribing]

2/2

[justscribing]

[Now that he's has a second to smugly enjoy that.]

Fine, but don't try moving any furniture over. If you need something we can get it from a much closer storehouse.

[fussiest]

[ in the beat, the smoldering silence of a man who absolutely knows he's lost this round, just that he has no idea what game they're playing and what the rules may be. ]

I'll need a drafting table at the minimum. The mornings can be chilly, so a rug is essential.
I also refuse to spend a month looking at bare walls. You'll have to live with the art I put up. Clearly it will also improve your quality of life, so you've nothing to complain about.

[justscribing]

As long as you save putting them up for normal waking hours.

Are we doing this tomorrow then?