Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alhaitham knew the party was a bad idea before he even set foot there. Loud. Crowded. Overflowing with people annoying enough sober, but somehow alcohol always brought out the idiot in idiots. Just waiting for something to get knocked over, spilled, or destroyed. He could swear the nasty smell of tobacco and vapes and God–knows–what was enough to make all the plants die in the orangerie that was the first floor of Tighnari’s house.

Unlucky for him (or rather un wise of him to overlook it), Tighnari tends to have an unfortunate skill of convincing other people of his will in a way that you won’t see coming; his perfectly calm nature could convince the bees to sell honey to a bear. The result? Alhaitham’s current unfortunate position within this large living room, squeezed on the couch between two girls who were blabbering about nothing — the unsatisfactory marks on the surprise exams that a surprisingly large number of teachers in the science department were infamous for.

It all started around five hours ago. Well, to be fair, it all really started during the introduction week, when they met. As the supervisor of the freshmen group Alhaitham had the unfortunate opportunity to be a part of, it was Tighnari’s responsibility to introduce the new students to university life. It would be a lie to state that either of them loved the arrangement, but it was apparently some sort of mandatory policy that the first–years couldn’t miss, and the third–years had to fulfill for a grade boost, the botany major told him later on. He also mentioned that for the latter group it was optional, but many of them took the responsibility, because it was – in his words – “the easiest way to get extra credit”. So easy that it only took about an hour for everyone else in the group to decide to bail to get stoned in the university bathroom.

Alhaitham knew they would get along from the moment he thanked Tighnari earnestly for his lack of people management skills, and the guy only shrugged, unbothered, and offered the other to come to his place for dinner instead.

Since then, it has become a weekly tradition to meet there, eat in silence, and study. Paradoxically, that’s precisely what worked so well for the introverted duo – no need for unnecessary small talk, and the ability to focus on their own work. Tighnari was endlessly preoccupied with some project that they were supposed to begin working on during the summer. Alhaitham used this time to take care of his assigned readings – so that he, not only, wouldn't have to do anything once the classes start, but also could be smarter than everyone else there from the get-go. A predictable, comfortable routine.

Until today.

“You’re gonna have to leave early tonight,” Tighnari breaks the silence halfway through the vegetarian casserole. “I am having a party.”

Alhaitham freezes mid–bite: what was more shocking, Tighnari having a party out of his own accord, or the audacity not to inform him beforehand – or invite him, for that matter. “Why?”

“Why am I having a party?”

“You told me the first week we met that parties are a waste of time designed for people who are too boring to have a meaningful hobby in their lives.”

Tighnari frowns. “I’m pretty sure you were the one to say that.”

“You didn’t disagree.”

“Fine. It was Cyno’s request.” Of course it was. 

“Uh–huh.” Alhaitham didn’t know much about Cyno, other than the fact they were a military school dropout turned second year dropout, turned community activist. Oh, and the fact Tighnari had a strange crush on them. It’s not that he didn’t care about his friend’s love life – just that he didn’t really care to ask any follow-up questions whenever it was brought up. He guessed Tighnari didn’t love it either, since the very first time Alhaitham inquired to see a picture, and dismissed him with an incredibly offensive six out of ten . Six and a half at best. How exactly did this six-and-a-half manage to get the guy who spends fifteen hours of his day talking to plants to throw a party? That was a mystery he did not care to inquire into, for once.

“So…” Tighnari starts again, visibly less confident now. “People are gonna start coming over around eight.”

“So…” Alhaitham imitates him. “Why wasn’t I invited?”

Tighnari looks at him as if he’s crazy. “You hate parties.”

“So do you, and that doesn’t stop you.”

“I’m doing this for love.”

“You’re doing this to hit,” Alhaitham corrects. “And you should’ve still invited me.”

“Fine. Feel free to stay.” Tighnari grabs his plate, turning towards the sink.

“Really?” Alhaitham was surprised at how easy this was. He didn’t really wanna go to the party, Tighnari was correct, he just felt offended by principle. But now that he got what he wanted without any effort, the invitation lost all its value.

“Really. You don’t have to come, of course. But then you would be admitting you’re just throwing a fit for attention, because your ego is this fragile.”

“I am a party animal,” Alhaitham adds his plate onto the pile of dishes Tighnari was washing, and clenches his teeth, not yet ready to admit defeat.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Thinking back to it now with a half–emptied can of warm beer twitching in his grip, awkwardly people-watching from the couch, the best choice was probably just to swallow his pride and go home. They both knew Alhaitham was doing this for attention already, it’s not like his ego was a huge secret – or a secret at all, to be fair. But something deep within Alhaitham still believed he had to prove Tighnari had wronged him as a friend by not inviting him immediately, and so he was stuck there. In the living room that was definitely not loud, and definitely not crowded – every one of the eight attendants stuck in redundant small talk, subtly watching everyone’s every move with a hope for something that would ease the cardinal party sins – awkwardness and boredom. Alhaitham had been dying for a perfect moment to excuse himself and simply leave since the party’s official start roughly twenty minutes earlier; but each time he moved even slightly, he felt everyone’s gaze follow towards his direction, which he could’ve sworn brought up the room temperature by at least two degrees each time it happened.

For now, at least, he still had this half-empty beer can to fixate on. Once it’s done he will have an excuse to grab another one, and take his leave–

“Hey,” a dark–haired girl with neon bright makeup sits down onto the couch next to him casually. Confused, he turns around, when a second silhouette materializes on the other side with a cheeky smirk – before he realizes, he is trapped. 

“Hello?”

“Do you think that guy over there is cute?” the other girl whispers, pointing a finger at a tall, skinny guy with white bleached hair only a few tones brighter than his own.

“He’s fine,” he replies, lowering his head back onto the can, and taking a tactical sip, with hope that it’s enough for them to abort this conversation.

They just exchange glances and giggle. The first girl tries again, “Okay, but like, rate him out of ten.”

He’s pretty sure the music is not loud enough to shut out her whispering, and the guy is painfully aware of being discussed, but he doesn’t have the balls to look up from his can.

“I don’t know. A six and a half?”

The neon girl seems like she couldn’t care less about his answer, jumping immediately to her next attempt to elicit a reaction. “He looks, like, super gay. Don’t you think?”

God. “What?” Alhaitham swears everyone in the room can hear them now.

“Just curious.” He carefully examines their grins. Was this some stupid prank? A setup? Or was it all in good fun, and per usual, he’s the one misreading the social cues?

“Can’t you two discuss this with each other?”

“We thought your input might be more valuable here.”

When Alhaitham raises an unimpressed eyebrow, the other girl just points at the sheer piece of clothing wrapped tightly around his massive chest. “You’re wearing mesh.”

“Right,” he cannot hide his sarcasm now, and finishes the beer with a quick sip. Hoping that’s enough social performance for now, he tries to get up, but the other girl puts a palm over his shoulder, not with too much pressure, but enough to keep him seated and cross yet another boundary. He just shoots her a glare and removes the intruder-hand.

“So? What do you think?” she smiles as if she hadn't just wandered into his personal space.

Alhaitham sighs. If that’s what it takes for them to leave him alone. “I think he's a medium amount of gay.”

“Just a medium amount of gay?”

“Fine. I think he’s a dirty faggot. Happy?”

The girls stare at him in silence, and Alhaitham is pretty sure they're not the only ones. “Uhm… that’s not…”

“Excuse me,” he finally drops the niceties with a heavy sigh. He doesn't look back long enough to see the dumbfounded looks on their faces – only hears the so rude ; I know as he leaves the god-forsaken couch behind and sets off on his search for Tighnari. He will stand his ground this time, like he should have in the first place, he will thank him for the invitation to waste his time (and conveniently ignore the fact he was the one to practically beg for it), but say that he has some studying to catch up on and leave.

“Alhaitham!” Just on time. “How are you enjoying the party?” Definitely passive aggressive. Tighnari knows what he’s doing.

“I’m getting out of here. Thanks for the invitation.”

“You invited yourself.” Tighnari follows Alhaitham in the direction of the entrance. “Weren’t you drinking?”

“I was. That’s why I asked for a ride.”

“You didn’t.”

“I thought it was implied. I just drank, remember?” And just to be extra annoying, he shakes the empty can in the air. God, this would’ve been so much more impactful if there was some ice inside.

“Hey, wait a second.” Tighnari grabs him, but pushes back quickly when Alhaitham twitches. Right. Personal boundaries. “Sorry. I can’t leave the party now. There are people in my house, and I’d rather keep an eye on them.”

“Cyno can’t babysit them for twenty minutes?”

“He’s late,” Tighnari frowns. “You can take the bus, they’re still going for a bit.”

“And come here again tomorrow by bus or on foot to get my car back?” Alhaitham crosses his arms.

“Well… yes.”

“Fine. Since you insist on hating me today,” Alhaitham groans. “But you will have to do some PR with Cyno’s friends. I’m pretty sure at least five people heard me say a slur.”

Tighnari just stares, lost for words. Alhaitham tries not to smirk visibly in his little triumph as he turns the knock, and just in that moment, someone else comes through the door. They exchange semi–awkward smiles as Tighnari gestures them towards the leaving room, before turning his attention back to his friend, already halfway out of the door. “Wait. If you’re gonna be a baby, you can take the guest room. But that means I win.”

Too easy. “There was no competition there,” Alhaitham states with a diplomatic smile that hides the fact he was dangerously close to getting humbled. Oh, how the tables turn when you are too accommodating for your own good.

“If you say so,” Tighnari rolls his eyes, uninterested anymore, and sticks his palm out. “Keys?”

“Excuse me?”

“I just wanna make sure you don’t do anything stupid. You’ll get them back tomorrow.”

Deep inside, Alhaitham wants to utter an I don’t need to be monitored , but his exhaustion with this conversation overpowers his pride this time. “Fine. You win your imaginary contest.” And he hands Tighnari the car keys. “Now, since I’m stuck here, can I at least get another beer?” Alhaitham isn’t looking at him anymore, just moving out of the hallway and back towards the center of the floor, appreciative of the lack of walls and doors between each room, which makes his whole performance flow more naturally.

“Out of alcohol. Cyno is running late with our supply team.”

Alhaitham makes a pretend shocked face. “Oh my. Guess they don’t teach punctuality in the military anymore.”

Tighnari rolls his eyes. “Stay mad if you want to. I have a party to host–”

“Is the party in the room with us?”

“All I’m saying is, you can’t really judge it here until more people come and first drinks are served.”

“Oh yeah, a bunch of drugged up and sweaty teenagers is all this place needs to make it more fun–”

“The party,” A voice echoes throughout the place, “has arrived!” Alhaitham identifies the guy as Cyno, quickly followed by a tall, golden–haired—

Alhaitham blinks rapidly. His eyes have to be deceiving him. Before he realizes his body is moving, he is already back in the living room, turned away from the newcomers.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Tighnari sighs as more glass clicking follows, presumably the bottles being set on the counter – Alhaitham still wasn't turning around.

“And risk these delicacies falling out on the ground? No way.” Alhaitham perks up. There’s a certain familiarity to the warm voice, but it’s deeper than he knows it, he can’t quite put his finger on–

“Kaveh!” Someone exclaims behind him, and he notices some people pass by him towards the kitchen, though his eyes hardly register any details as he stares at the wall in front of him.

Impossible.

Alhaitham turns around abruptly – too abruptly – the one girl left on the couch giving him a weird look, her friend missing, and he realizes that she was the one screaming, the one…

Swinging around Kaveh’s neck. Kaveh’s .

God – Well, he is precisely why Alhaihtam doesn’t believe in one, because who out there would want to subject him to this kind of torture, and what did he do to deserve this? There has to be a logical explanation for this.

Kaveh is seemingly unaware of his presence, too busy being crowded by what seems to be every fucking person in the room. Alhaitham didn't realize how many people were present here until now, until they were all swarming like bees to the blonde-haired man and the alcohol he was presenting.

“We got lime for the classics lovers,” Kaveh says in an overly cheerful manner, like a salesman aware of his product's poor quality who needs to overcompensate to sell it to any client. How annoying. “Blackcurrant, mango, lychee. That’s for vodkas. There’s some tequila as well... And Cyno–”

“Let the real fun be gin –” Cyno smirks under his head as they begin going through multiple gin flavors, and Tighnari rolls his eyes as a couple of people chuckle at the pun.

Alhaitham tries his best to ignore the devotee crowd of alcoholics circling around the newcomers. Suddenly, he doesn’t feel like drinking anymore. He takes steps towards the corner of an almost–empty living room, just brushing past the guy he called a fag before with an awkward smile.

Kaveh. He stands in front of a bookshelf in the corner of the living room, trying as hard as he can to concentrate on picking a semi–interesting reading and getting upstairs as soon as he can. Kaveh is here. Kaveh. Alhaitham’s brain repeats these two syllables like an earworm you can’t get out of your head, so long that the word loses its meaning. 

Kaveh. The dealbreaker. It seems this year won’t be the one for exciting social bonds; he will lock himself in a room for as long as it’s necessary, but it’s fine. He’s always been fine with his own status quo, if that means being comfortable with his own presence and no one else. Well, as long as he can get through this incredibly strong contender for one of the worst days of his life.

Ka-veh. It didn’t make any sense. He hasn't seen him in so long, he swore Kaveh probably moved out of the city, and one far, far away at that, like he always planned to. The last thing he would do is stay here, in the most average town in the world with nothing to do, where he knew Alhaitham was, and – well, at least he could be the center of attention here, clearly. Why would he even–

“Hello?” Tighnari brings him out of his thoughts, and Alhaitham nearly jumps at the surprise. “You said you wanted more drinks.”

It takes him nearly a minute to process Kaveh standing right next to his friend. He’s grown a few centimeters taller, and his hair — even more so. Now bleached, the copper shade he used to sport in high school no longer in sight. For the first time, Alhaitham catches a glimpse of his natural, dark roots threatening to grow out from his skull. It must have been at least a few weeks since he last attacked it with the bleach. Kaveh’s dark eyes stare at him from between the red-and-orange makeup, undecipherable. Before he can double–think, he blabbers out: “What’s he doing here?”

“I’m sorry?” Kaveh chuckles awkwardly, confusion painted on his face, and Alhaitham wishes he had bit his tongue before he made the heart-stopping smile disappear from the boy’s cherry lips.

“Sorry. I’m not thirsty anymore.” Time is out. He grabs the first book from the shelf. “I have to read this.”

Tighnari is throwing him a suspicious glance – even for Alhaitham, he’s acting weird. “Dictionary of botany?”

         Alhaitham swallows. Why is he so freaked out in the first place? It’s just a guy, after all. One annoying, insufferable guy who can't even get his haircut straight, or come to a party punctually. Most of all, Kaveh probably doesn’t even recognize him, with how much he’s changed within the past five or so years.

“You know me,” Alhaitham tries to play it off now, “always curious to find out more about... different stuff.”

“Are you also a botany major? Is that how you know each other?” Kaveh asks him, and, regrettably, his intentions seem genuine. Of course. He and his exhausting need to start a conversation with every new person he meets.

“I– no. I just… like to read, I guess.”

“Looks like we have something in common.” The smile is back on. “I’m Kaveh.”

“Alhaitham.”

Alhaitham could swear there was a glimpse in Kaveh’s eyes when he said that. Or maybe it’s just the way they reflect the lights when Alhaitham’s anxiety of being found out is spiking. Or maybe it’s the effect that Kaveh always had on him – prompting him to notice glimpses in faces and behaviors that would have gone unnoticed with anyone else.

“Sorry, I’m acting weird,” Kaveh laughs it off. “It’s just that I haven’t heard that name in so long. I used to be friends with this guy named Alhaitham in high school. Funny, it was in this city, too–”

“It’s a pretty common name.”

Kaveh tilts his head as if to examine him. Alhaitham would guess he’s getting suspicious, but he looks more curious than anything.

“Alhaitham is a first–year. He does linguistics.” Tighnari tries to keep the conversation going to avoid awkwardness, and Alhaitham wants to murder him on the spot. He doesn’t need any more giveaways of his identity to Kaveh. “We met during this year’s introduction.”

Kaveh laughs, as if there was something inherently funny about it. “Linguistics. Wow. I could never do that.” An unintelligible voice in the background screams something Alhaitham doesn't quite get, but Kaveh finally excuses himself. “Sorry. Duty calls. Listen… Alhaitham. If you want a drink at any point, you can find me at the bar.” And he puts a hand on Alhaitham’s shoulder, causing a warmth to spread through his stomach like a disease.

“Alhaitham doesn’t like–”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Kaveh removes his hand in an apologetic manner. “I should've asked–”

“It’s… fine. Not a big deal,” Alhaitham says, calmly, to both Tighnari’s surprise – this has to be the nicest he’s been all day – and his own: as he realizes he doesn’t mind the touch at all, in fact, he prefers it over Tighnari making Kaveh withdraw his hands so abruptly. But there’s nothing else to say now to change it, Alhaitham realizes as he slowly watches Kaveh leave the living room.

“What was that about?” Tighnari finally breaks the silence with a suspicious tone, as if he was a detective trying to get to the bottom of a puzzling mystery.

“Nothing.”

“You totally have a crush on Kaveh.”

“Are you stupid?” Alhaitham snaps, but quickly backs down, ashamed. “I mean–”

“Let me guess. Six and a half out of ten?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Alhaitham dismisses, though deep inside he knows Kaveh might be the only person in the world he would ever consider a ten. Holding the book firmly, he announces the first excuse that his mind can fathom in the moment: “I'm going upstairs.”

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Okay, maybe he should have just reacted with a bit more stoicism, because then he wouldn't be stuck in this room all by himself, trying to get through this excruciating read. He thought it was better than nothing (and certainly better than being stuck at a house party with Kaveh). However, his inability to focus on things he has zero interest in begins to show merely fourteen pages in, just as the author begins to explain in detail the complex topic of angiosperms. Remarkably, the pages are annotated – each time the word sperm appears, it is circled with a purple highlighter, which Alhaitham can only assume is the work of Cyno.

Finally, just as he is about to give up, the door swings open and two girls – the ones Alhaitham had the displeasure of meeting before, of course – make out on the way inside.

He tries to leave as quietly as possible, but one of them notices as she opens her eyes in an attempt to unbutton the other’s shirt. “Oh my God! Are you some kind of perv who likes to watch girls make out?”

Alhaitham sighs, putting the book away and heading for the door. “You know what? Knock yourselves out.”

He might as well be getting hammered.

“Can I still take you up on that drink offer?” Alhaitham blurs out as soon as he reaches the kitchen counter, once known for Tighnari’s weekly vegan cooking, now overflowing with syrups and sodas and liquor. At the center of it all, Kaveh is in the zone, juggling all the ingredients like a pro.

“You’re gonna have to wait in line. You're not the only person in the room, you know?” 

Alhaitham furrows his brows. “I–”

“Relax. I’m just teasing you.” Kaveh smiles. Alhaitham watches him carefully pour something into the glass and hand it over to the white haired guy behind the counter. Alhaitham blushes from embarrassment. This needs to end. “What do you want?”

“I– I'm not sure. Usually I just go for a beer.”

“Oh my God.” Kaveh laughs. “Okay. Don’t worry. We can still fix this.”

“Fix this?”

“Your taste buds must have been through it.” Kaveh stares him straight in the eyes without fear as his hands wash the glasses in the meantime. “Let me fix you a real drink.”

“I’m at the edge of my seat,” Alhaitham replies dryly, watching Kaveh’s hands work with intense focus. It wasn't really surprising that Kaveh would venture into this. Even in high school, the guy liked drinking at parties here and there, maybe a bit too much. Some things take longer than half a decade to change, it seems. “Do you work as a bartender?”

“Me? Uh, no. It's just a hobby, I guess. Someone has to do it.”

“Kaveh’s so jobless right now.” Alhaitham jumps as the Cyno person materializes next to him. 

“Thank you, Cyno. That was immensely helpful.” Kaveh throws a smile more sardonic than any of the previous ones. “In determining who’s not getting a drink tonight.”

Cyno smiles. “That's fine. I guess you can watch me and everyone else smoke this, then.” They put a joint up as if they were presenting a rare treasure, and Kaveh rolls his eyes with a chuckle. Instead of gracing the other with a response, he hands Alhaitham a glass of liquor that almost perfectly matches the shade of his eyeshadow.

“Here’s your daiquiri. I watered it down a bit, so let me know if it’s strong enough.”

“You're watering down daiquiri? What are we, twelve?” Cyno comments.

“Don't mind him,” Kaveh dismisses as he pours down the rest of the un–watered–down drink into two remaining glasses. “And Alhaitham here is right. We’re smoking anyway. Which means,” he punctuates each phrase as he hands the drinks over, “we are going to take this slow, alright?”

“Cheers!” Their glasses click in unison, but Alhaitham is the only one who starts drinking, he realizes, and slowly removes his from the tip of his lips.

“Is there something wrong?”

“We’re gonna go outside with this. You can join if you want.” Cyno smacks the joint in the air for good measure.

“You don't have to smoke,” Kaveh affirms.

“Sure. I wouldn't–”

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Mind. Alhaitham wouldn’t mind, as long as it was just three of them, but they conveniently decided to leave out the fact that twice as many people were waiting for them on the terrace. So many different-looking people, as if there was one for each hair color, from reds and greens to crazy stripes and highlights. All their faces blend somehow. Maybe it’s for the better, at least this way there’s more crowd to blend into, and his existence will remain as unnoticed as it can.

The one who stands out the most is the girl, only slightly less tall, muscular, and dark-skinned than Alhaitham is. She passes the joint she was holding to someone and walks forward vigorously, hugging all of them at once.

“You made it! And you brought–”

“Uhm,” Alhaitham coughs. “Could you–”

“My bad! I just get excited when I meet new people.” She puts her hand up in the air instead. “I’m Dehya.”

“Alhaitham.”

“Pleased!” She smiles, the hand still hanging in the air as everyone in the circle grows quieter. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging!”

“She wants to high–five,” Kaveh suggests, and Alhaitham blinks rapidly. Of course.

“I apologize,” he says and returns the high five. Just before he can think how awkward he made things already, Dehya’s already returning to the rotation, and they all gather round. 

Cyno puts up a joint to Kaveh’s mouth and fights the lighter to get it to work. Alhaitham tries to ignore his thoughts racing about just how gorgeous Kaveh looks, his mouth wrapped around the tip of the blunt, light breeze moving his curls like waves of a golden sea.

“Hey. You didn't even wait for me to start the round?” A low voice echoes throughout the patio with a shut of the door, as a dark–haired guy walks towards them. A friend of theirs, he assumes.

That is, until he wraps his heavily tattooed arms around Kaveh. Alhaitham gulps.

“You're driving,” Kaveh comments lightheartedly, taking a swing of the narcotic.

“Oh. I see. So everyone is gonna have fun but I have to soberwatch.” Alhaitham shivers uncomfortably. Was it just him or did everyone grow quiet all of a sudden?

Kaveh sighs. “You volunteered to drive. I said we should take the bus.”

“Right. Take the bus, and make stops to buy weed, and alcohol, it would have taken an hour.”

“Then we would’ve just come later, and you could drink then. I tried–”

“You shouldn’t drive intoxicated,” Alhaitham’s voice comes out of nowhere, and suddenly everyone goes quiet. His stomach turns in all directions at the uncomfortable familiarity of the feeling.

“Who are you? A cop?”

“No. Unless it’s a moron cop. Do you not have a sense of responsibility towards your boyfriend?” Alhaitham doesn’t know what is coming over him, it might as well be an assumption, and he might just make a fool out of himself. But something tells him he’s right, and rarely does he ignore the feeling of being right.

Kaveh is surprised to say the least, but he puts his hand up in a disarming gesture. “Hey, it’s fine. You don't need to–”

“Don't speak to my boyfriend like you know anything.” The guy walks closer in an attempt to tower over him, but it looks rather pathetic, as Alhaitham is taller and larger than him. He smirks to himself, already knowing he’s about to score another win under his belt tonight.

“Both of you need to chill a little,” Kaveh tries, internally dying of shame and embarrassment that his friends have to witness this.

“Whose side are you on?” The boyfriend hisses and looks around at the present faces. Apparently, he saw something that told him it’s better to retreat, because without another word, he leaves.

“I’m really sorry about this. I’m gonna talk to him.” Kaveh apologizes with a weak smile. “You guys have fun.”

Alhaitham is dumbfounded. Did he witness the same scene they did? Are they all okay with Kaveh being talked to this way? “You don't have to run after him just because he's acting like a baby.”

Kaveh gives him one last look of disbelief. “You said it. He’s my boyfriend. I don't want to make him upset.” And he disappears.

“What was that about?” Alhaitham asks, a breath semi-stuck in his throat.

“You shouldn’t have interfered.” Cyno side–eyes him from underneath their hat, the chill attitude replaced with an almost unrecognizable irritation.

“He didn't lie,” Alhaitham jerks up instinctively to witness Dehya defending him. It wasn’t a common occurrence. “I don't like that guy.”

“I didn't say I love him either, but it’s between Kaveh and Ramin. Whatever he thought he did doesn't help anyone at all.” Cyno points at Alhaitham when he enunciates the he , as if he were something that shouldn’t be spoken of directly.

“Well, someone should say something!” Dehya keeps arguing. “This moron wanted to drive intoxicated! Lord knows what’d have happened.”

“There are better ways to go about this.”

They're talking in circles about him as if he’s not even there. Alhaitham just missed maybe his only shot at actually making friends. He feels sick. They’re fighting, and it feels like it's going on for eternity, and his mind is drawing a blank at this point.

“I’m gonna go check up on Kaveh,” Alhaitham excuses himself, and without waiting for a response, leaves the house.

Cyno waits a good forty seconds before raising his suspicions. “He’s acting weird.”

“I thought it was pretty sweet and considerate,” A tiny red-head girl dressed in a multitude of shawl layers chimes in, for the first time since this whole argument.

“Exactly. Definitely weird, based on what Nari told me about this guy.” Tighnari lowers his hat towards his forehead dramatically. “I’m keeping an eye on him.”

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

This is too much emotion for one night, especially for Alhaitham. He could’ve been tucked in bed a long time ago, done his yoga, read his book. Instead, he’s fighting with every single person in sight, and on top of that, he probably ruined the only chance he had to get back into Kaveh’s good graces, even if the other won’t realize it, unaware of his true identity. But Alhaitham still has a chance. He just has to apologize.

Which never came easily to him. Especially in situations like this, where he isn’t in the wrong. A way better option is to spy on the couple in secret, hiding behind one of the walls, and trying his best to hear what they’re talking about from a distance.

“Ramin, please…”

“Would it really kill you to trust your boyfriend for once in your life?

“You are not getting behind that wheel. Come on, you need to lay down.”

“Let go of me! This is fucking assault and you won’t be telling me what to do.” Alhaitham hears some shuffling and yanking sounds.

“Oh my God, you’re already intoxicated.”

“Uhm, did you forget when you forbid me from drinking because you want me to drive you around like a fucking shoffeur?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Kaveh asks with that recognizable tone. He’s mad, frustrated even, but it’s still inside him, waiting to erupt. Alhaitham can picture him clenching his fists and teeth, waiting for the next sentence, which will determine how this conversation will pan out.

Ramin is crying. “I do everything for you. I offer to pick you up, drive you places, you like being seen with me, I’m like your personal driver, but you don't even love me enough to let me have fun at a party. Hell, you pay me no mind this entire time!”

“Ramin–”

“Let me finish!” He exclaims, but then takes a deep breath with an exhale so audible it might be intended as an olive branch towards Kaveh, to show him that he’s calmer. “I don’t know what happened, Kaveh. We used to be different. Now it’s like you don’t care, you use me, hell, you won’t even move in with me.”

Silence.

Alhaitham begins to get worried. Why’re they so quiet? Did he do something to Kaveh that Alhaitham couldn’t see? He peeks out a little, and he swears the shifting of his boots on the grass almost blows his cover, but Kaveh saves him just in time:

“Don’t lie to me. Please. What did you take?”

“I took a few puffs. I’m not even high, Kaveh! And it’s not like you’re the one to talk. The least you could do is not do it either.”

“I know you did more.”

“You’re monitoring me now?”

“Are you hearing yourself?” Kaveh finally crashes, his voice going up in volume and pitch, and it’s enough to send a shiver down his spine. “I’m worried. I don't want you to crash the car and die, please…”

“Please, what? How is it that it’s okay for you to drink how much you want, and party whenever, but when I–”

“Because I’m not driving!”

“You won’t even let me finish! You never fucking let me finish,” Ramin screams and Kaveh goes quiet momentarily. “You know what, save it. I can’t deal with this anymore. You stay here and smoke your weed, and party as much as you want, and make drinks for all your high school friends. But if I crash my car because of this, don't act like you ever cared.”

Only a pair of footsteps follows, and then a next, more frantic one. “I’m sorry. Please. At least let me come with you. We can walk. Or take the bus–”

“Not now, Kaveh.” There was something about the way he said it that made Alhaitham’s chest drop to his stomach. The words become lost within the rumble of the engine and the screech of wheels on the asphalt.

Alhaitham sighs, deciding it’s time now. He walks towards Kaveh standing there, unmoving like a statue. “Hey?” 

Suddenly, the statue moves, jumps at the sound. “What do you want? Did you not have enough yet? Were you eavesdropping now, too?”

Alhaitham thinks about what that Ramin guy said. All your high school friends .

“You knew. Who I was, that is.”

Alhaitham was expecting a yeah . And I did . So what? A moment of consolidation, now that they’re standing like this in front of each other again, full transparency, no secrets. Nothing to lose.

But Kaveh explodes. 

“Of course I knew! Do you think I’m stupid too?” He wasn’t crying before, but now he looks close to it, the blood rushing up to his cheeks and forehead, breath held in before the words fly out: “Like what, dying your hair and bulking up and shooting testosterone makes you a different person?”

“It does a little.”

“No, it doesn't! That’s the point! You're still just as grumpy in social situations, and you told me you study linguistics, and – oh, I don’t know – you’re still wearing the hearing aids I gave you!”

Right. The last part hits Alhaitham like a truck. He’s gotten so used to it at this point that he didn’t even consider it as a potential giveaway. Still, he can’t let it show. “Good thing you brought this up. Is there some sort of warranty on it? It’s not the shape it used to be after all these years.”

The joke was meant to lift the mood a little bit, but it seems to have the opposite effect. “You know, it’s unbelievable how much of an entitled asshole you still are.”

Now Alhaitham frowns. Two can play this blame game. “Then why did you spend the whole night pretending like nothing happened, like you don't even know me, if you were still mad about something that happened half a decade ago?”

“Obviously because I’m an idiot!” Kaveh says more disappointed than angry now. “Because I thought that there’s no point holding an old grudge, so – like an idiot – I tried to be nice to you for the past three hours, just for you to what? Make fun of me and try to ruin my relationship?”

“If that’s all it takes, your relationship was ruined before I got here. Admit it.” Before Kaveh can even elicit more than a flabbergasted facial expression out of himself, Alhaitham continues. “You know, maybe you are the idiot, because I was the one who took your side and you still blame me instead of your cunt of a junkie boyfriend.”

“It’s not your argument to have.”

“Of course. It never is, because someone still wants to play martyr instead of just standing up for himself.”

“And someone is still so possessive over me he cannot phantom the thought I can have a good relationship outside of him!”

“Oh? So, when he practically implied it will be your fault if he dies in a self-inflicted accident, was that him being a good boyfriend ?”

As if it wasn’t enough, someone in that exact moment had to burst out through the front door just to violently puke into the porch-decorating flowers. With the corner of an eye, Alhaitham recognizes the dark-haired girl who was harassing him on the couch earlier. She must’ve paid a lot of money for the neon makeup, as it was – albeit smudged – still visible from a distance, even more so now with the pitch-blackness of the night bringing out the vibrancy of the colors. Either way, Tighnari won’t be happy with his garden tomorrow.

“You know what? I’m done talking to you. Clearly, all you care about is making me feel bad just so you can feel better about yourself.” Kaveh doesn’t even give him a chance to respond before he turns on his heel and walks towards the door. Of course, being himself, he had to crouch down next to the drunkard to ask if they were okay and help them walk back inside.

Alhaitham stares at the carless street in silence. It had to end this way, after all. Why would he even lie to himself by indulging the half-witted idea that Kaveh could be his friend, even for a night – or at least not absolutely despise him for a night? Right nowm he almost wishes he shared Ramin’s idiocy so he could just take his vehicle and drive himself back home. Even crashing on his way sounds like a less awful option in comparison with staying inside this crazy house.

No. He can’t think like this. Whatever Kaveh has going on with his asshole boyfriend, Alhaitham is not going to make the same mistake again.

Reluctantly, and questioning all of his life choices, Alhaitham makes his way back inside, which he regrets instantly. Loud. Crowded. Overflowing with drunk, sweaty adults seemingly in a competition as to who can generate more noise, the screamers fighting on the dancefloor, or the ones scattered throughout the house who still somehow attempt to have conversations amidst the chaos. Alhaitham sighs and clicks a button on his hearing aid, which shuts down the noise. He can’t back down now.

The girl who’d just puked is crouched against the wall with someone else. Not Kaveh. He almost considers trying to ask her about his whereabouts, but then he realizes. Kitchen.

And there he stands, in all his glory: Kaveh, leaning on the sink as he gulps down a bottle of vodka, not even bothering to use the shot glasses standing right in front of him. 

“I think that’s enough,” Alhaitham suggests. Kaveh startles, a bit of the liquid spilling down his neck and shirt. He frowns.

“Who are you to say that?” Kaveh’s lips move soundlessly, and Alhaitham realizes he forgot about the hearing aids.

“What?” 

“I said,” Kaveh screams, frustrated to repeat himself and trying to overpower the volume of the room. “Don’t tell me what to do,”

That’s not what he said the first time, Alhaitham’s lip-reading skills can tell that much, but he doesn’t bother to comment. “Come on, you’re barely standing.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re going to pass out any moment.”

“I’m not going to pass–”

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

“–out.” 

“What?” Alhaitham has been dissociating for a while. Kaveh passed out – predictably – so he was practically forced to carry him upstairs, to the guest room that was supposed to be his. Then, he had to make sure the careless idiot wasn’t going to suffocate on his own puke, tuck him in bed, and prepare some water just in case he woke up. Kaveh keeps lying still as a log, and his face looks redder than usual, burning up, so Alhaitham dampens the tower in cold water to bring his temperature down. The sensation seemingly brings him back onto the land of the awake, as he jolts up instantly.

“What’s–” Alhaitham barely registers the disoriented swaying, the hand grabbing a forehead desperately, before Kaveh rushes to the bathroom.

“Hey,” Alhaitham pushes him back down, puts a bowl underneath him, and the puke shoots up instantly. Alhaitham turns around to not be met with the graphic intricacies of what Kaveh had for dinner. “Slow down.”

Kaveh feels tears fall down as the smell overwhelms him. “Gross.”

“Don’t you say.”

And then Kaveh bursts out into sobs. Alhaitham stands there, unmoving, uncomfortable, unsure of what he’s supposed to do now. Thankfully, Kaveh begins to slur out:

“He’s kicking me out.” 

“Who now?”

“The fucking landlord!” He wails, snots falling down his face, but right now he seems to be more concerned with letting his frustrations out. “He says my gross income is less than expected… and his ‘property advisor’ told him it would be in his ‘best financial interest’ to kick me out. Rich people are the worst.”

Alhaitham stands still, letting Kaveh vent his heart out. The guest room is cozy, relatively quiet, especially in contrast to the downstairs’ hazardous noise. Somehow, in the moment, it only seems to make things more awkward, with more gaps in conversation to be filled. “You could get a job.”

“Wow, why didn’t I think of that before?” Clearly, Kaveh’s trying his best to come off as sarcastic, but the state of his face is making it difficult. “My bad, I don't have a diploma yet, but maybe if people in this city weren’t so blatantly classist–”

“Alright. Let me just–” Alhaitham has no clue what he’s doing. Internally, he’s praying – which he never does – that if he just starts trying to comfort the other, his mind will know what to do and the rest will fall into place. Like a basic human instinct. But it doesn’t come, and per usual, his brain is left to its own devices and has to come up with something, quickly. “Drink this,” he finally decides, extending a glass of water.

Kaveh gives him a suspicious look, or maybe he’s weighing the pros and cons of his potential decisions. Reject the gesture, and he can retain his pride, or whatever is left of it. Take the glass, and he can stop tasting the puke inside his mouth. At last, he caves in.

Alhaitham tries his best not to look too smug. He figures it would most likely only elicit another over-emotional reaction in the moment and he’d rather just keep the temporary peace between them going. As much as he would love it to rub it into Kaveh’s face – that he won, because at the end of the day, he’s standing tall and collected while Kaveh’s bawling and barfing his life out, abandoned at a party by his addict boyfriend.

It is kind of sad when put that way. Alhaitham stares at Kaveh like he’s looking into a distorted mirror. The absent gaze, the more frequent tapping of Kaveh’s fingers on his legs, the intensifying grip on his hair. He looks… tired. Stressed. Plain miserable. Whatever mask he’s been trying to fit into his face throughout this whole night finally slips, and only a lost soul remains, an actor who forgets his lines in the middle of a performance and has no choice but to stand in the middle of the stage and take in the shame and humiliation.

“Oh my God, I’m just like him,” he suddenly blurts out, the line coming back to him. Or perhaps he’s going off script now, hugging himself tightly like a baby.

“Who…?”

Kaveh doesn’t grace Alhaitham with an answer and instead changes the subject. “What time is it?”

Alhaitham glances at his phone, which just struck three thirty. “Late.”

“I need to call Ramin.” Kaveh stumbles trying to get up from the floor.

“ You need to stay here and sober up. Ramin’s home, and he’s probably drunk or asleep.”

Kaveh shakes his head, a new wave of tears threatening to spill. “Just give me my phone, please.”

But as soon as he gets it he begins to blink rapidly, his heavy head hurting like hell.

“Let’s not worry him right now, alright? How about I write him a message for you?”

“Okay.” Kaveh closes his eyes in a venture to make the dizziness go away. “Just ask him if he got home. And tell him I'm sorry.”

As much as he is tempted to send something stupid instead, or simply block the number, Alhaitham does as Kaveh says.

“He’s a good boyfriend,” Kaveh says while closing his eyes again. “He was upset, and he was right. You don't know him. I know we all have our issues. But he does a lot for me. And I'm just taking him for granted. I don’t even know why I got so overemotional. All I do is drink, and smoke, and I'm worthless…” he cries.

“No, you're not.” Panic begins to creep in. He has no idea how to handle Kaveh like this – not angry, or frustrated, but hopeless, like a little baby. “You’re not worthless. You’re going to sleep, and tomorrow you'll talk to him when neither of you is drunk anymore.”

“Mhm,” Kaveh sniffles.

Alhaitham sighs as he feels an indescribable instinct buzzing inside of him. Here goes nothing. “And then you’re gonna move in with me.”

Kaveh stops crying at once, instead staring at him as if he just told him the Earth is flat. “You're making fun of me.”

“No. I…” Alhaitham might be making the most insane, spirit-of-the-moment decision of his life. But human instincts appear to be uncontrollable, even for him. “I have a spare room. You don't have to pay rent until you figure stuff out.”

“How drunk are you?”

Not drunk enough for this, for sure. “It’s my parents’ house. There's no landlord, so I can choose however much money I want.”

“I can’t.” Kaveh shakes his head. “You're just saying that because you feel bad for me.”

“Well… yes. But you're in no position to refuse help solely based on my motivations.”

 Kaveh turns away again. “I don't want your pity house.”

“Fine. Then I guess I have to tell every one of your friends that I gave you a perfect solution to your problem, but you said no because of your massive ego.”

Kaveh scoffs. “And what makes you think I wanna move in with you?” Stumbling, he gets to his feet, as if to prove to Alhaitham he's on the same level.

“Desperation. Poverty. Sheer incomprehensibility of the idea that anyone else would tolerate your behavior as a housemate.” Alhaitham lists without a care. “Should I keep going?”

“You– you’re so annoying.”

Alhaitham tries to hide the smug smile as he sits down on the bed next to Kaveh. The room feels quiet now, serene. The faint smell of vomit dissipates into the air as the very last reminder of the party still going on. “It doesn't have to be more than a week or two. If you find something in the meantime, you're free to move out and never speak to me again.”

Kaveh sniffles, but his initial reluctance is gone, and Alhaitham can practically see the cogs in his brain turning as he grows accepting of the idea. “I think we will have to at some point. Now that we have so many mutual friends.”

“I‘d have no problem giving you the silent treatment in front of everyone.”

“I know.” Kaveh chuckles, and for the first time in a while, it appears to be sincere. “It’s good to see you again, Haitham.”

“Yeah. You too, Kaveh.”

Alhaitham closes the door quietly and sighs. With his bed now taken, he interprets this as a sign to finally do what he, deep down, wanted to do for the past seven hours. Making his way through the function’s leftovers, cramped inside the heavy air, he begins to walk towards his house, the cold breeze of the summer’s last night refreshing his mind. He’d rather not be here to deal directly with the aftermath of whatever–this–was. There's nothing like his own house, after all — a house that was soon bound to be more than his.

Chapter Text

The final days of September marked the end to one of the most intense months of Alhaitham’s life – which wasn’t that remarkable of a feat, really, considering that most of his life was predictably average. Times when he would still carefully plan out his daily routine by the hour were long gone. After so long, he already has everything memorized: Wake up at seven. Do yoga. Read. Eat breakfast. Go to school/work. Clock out on time, and not a minute too late. Get home. Eat dinner. This left him with plenty of free time (which, admittedly, was usually occupied by reading). Just the way life is supposed to be. Thanks to that, he managed to get through the entirety of his bachelor's program unscathed. Sure, he would have to make minimal adjustments at times – occasionally he would skip a class, or three, if he decided it was useless, but he’d always turn out fine in the exams anyway.

Most of all, he avoided wasting his time dealing with people, most of whom did not deserve his attention, nor his patience. While this left him feeling lonely sometimes, he had over twenty years of his life to get used to the loneliness, and he found that most of the time his own company was much more enjoyable than anyone else’s. Solitude beats the draining inconvenience of relationships any day.

Since Kaveh moved in nearly three weeks prior, however, it seemed as if every day he set out a goal to challenge Alhaitham’s perfectly curated schedule as much as he humanly could. As a result, Alhaitham has begun mentally compiling a pros and cons list of making that regretful spirit of the moment decision to invite him in back at Tighnari’s.

As an already accomplished academic, he tries to remain as unbiased as humanly possible with his evaluations – even in unfortunate cases like this one. ‘Unfortunate’ stands for one where all the sides pointed towards his own mistake, something that rarely happens. Right now, regrettably, the cons are overpowering pros by a mile.

1. Pieces of cloth and jewelry always conveniently getting lost somewhere between Kaveh’s bedroom and the living room.
2. Plates and wine glasses disappearing mysteriously from the cupboards for days on end as they begin to reside permanently on Kaveh’s nightstands.
3. Cold air sneaking into the house for the grand majority of the day, because Kaveh can’t seem to remember (or bother) to close the windows, however cold it may start to get outside by this time of September, especially the evenings.

Kaveh’s completely thoughtless lack of any reasonable schedule, leading to a variety of sounds escaping the bedroom, which remained peaceful and untouched for years up until now.

All definitely cons – but the list goes on and on. For instance, Kaveh’s unremarkable ungratefulness for the (frankly) life-changing offer, which manifests in just how comfortable he feels criticizing his housemate for every little thing instead. As if he wasn’t a living parasite and Alhaitham – his personal Jesus Christ.

Oh, the vases in the kitchen are too tacky. Oh, this painting is uneven. Were you raised in a barn or something? I thought you were supposed to be rich? Guess money doesn't buy good taste anymore. Why do you have so many cheap-looking plates? Oh, the table–

“–definitely needs a replacement,” Kaveh says analytically as he rams his fist into the wood (or what he refers to as ‘knocking’). Hunched over near the table leg, he shakes it so hard that Alhaitham is convinced that he might be purposefully trying to fuck up his furniture just to prove a point.

“It’s a table.”

“I know it’s a table–” Kaveh gives an exasperated sigh, the way he always does when he’s about to go off on Alhaitham for no reason. “The problem is, why choose a table that’s neither good quality, given this wood just begs to crash onto the floor, nor aesthetically pleasing. If you want to pull off white furniture, you have to commit to it. This shade of brown matches literally nothing else in this tasteless god-forsaken house.”

“Need I remind you, his god forsaken house seems to be your last option right now, but if you draw a line at a table...”

“An ugly table.”

“A regular table.”

“A table that's bound to break soon, if we don’t do something about it now.”

“We are not going to do anything. If you’re unsatisfied with my table choice, you're more than free to find someplace else to stay.”

“Fine!” Kaveh throws his hands up and leaves the room, muttering. “Asshole.”

“Freeloader,” Alhaitham raises his voice loud enough so Kaveh can still hear. He can only smirk as the freeloader shuts the door behind him with a loud thud.

Against his better judgment, Alhaitham found that to be a rare pro, so far the only one on the list.

1. Daily ability to make Kaveh’s life miserable

All Alhaitham has to do is just throw a little comment here and there on, and hear Kaveh go off on tangents. If he’s feeling particularly unattentive, the hearing part is optional. He can simply switch his aids off to silent mode, or play some music instead, and watch Kaveh’s face burn red, his hands performing exasperated pantomime in the air. Usually, it only takes one of Alhaitham’s snarky didn't know you landed on mime of all things as your backup career choice, but it will be even harder for you to pay me off with that for Kaveh to realize he hasn't been listening for the past five minutes, and leave in frustration.

Sometimes, when he got particularly mad, he left the house and wouldn’t come back for a while. That was another somewhat-pro (Alhaitham was still giving it time to decide before it could fully make the list) – despite all the chaos introduced into Alhaitham’s life, most days remained unchanged, Kaveh always out in class, or at one of his many friends’ places, or at the local bar. Although the unpredictability factor was there, Alhaitham was still able to keep enough time to himself not to go insane.

Well, most of the time. With the con list growing consistently, there was one undeniable contender for the very top spot – constant visits from Kaveh’s boyfriend.

When Alhaitham was trying to enjoy his afternoon tea in peace, the man would show up at their doorstep unannounced. And Alhaitham could swear he made sure to sport a cocky smile every time he himself had the displeasure of having to open the door, Kaveh sometimes still busy getting ready, or unable to hear the doorbell over his music (or to simply communicate with his supposed partner). Then, the grin would turn even cockier on the evidently PG-18 rated nights, and the following mornings when Alhaitham would encounter the misfortune of a sight in the form of bite marks and hickeys on both of them when he was headed for his customary cup of coffee.

Kaveh seemed utterly oblivious to just how annoying and disgusting Ramin’s behavior was. It was as if the guy had a mission of his own – to piss the shit out of Alhaitham, just to turn around and shower Kaveh with sweet words and puppy eyes. Love truly was a gross invention.

The worst of it took place at night. Even with his ability to fall asleep fast and deeply, Alhaitham couldn't escape it – and for Kaveh’s extensive knowledge of architecture and decor that he liked to flounder at any given occasion, he sure picked a squeaky bed.

Alhaitham turns to the other side for what must be the fifth time tonight. He’s not tired enough to sleep through this, but rationally, he needs enough rest before his classes tomorrow; and his schedule is off by an hour already. His mind tries to skim through the list, which usually helps him calm down, but it’s futile now. One last (way too loud) grunt tips him over the edge. It’s his house after all, and yet again he’s unjustly punished for extending his kindness and generosity to someone so ungrateful. It should be Kaveh who tells his stupid boyfriend to keep quiet in the first place – but he figures the man possesses just as much of a backbone as he does respect.

Lazily, he stumbles out of bed, reluctantly puts on his hearing aids just in case he needs to have (win) a discussion as he makes his way to the other bedroom. The first round of knocking isn’t enough to fully keep them quiet; the door still lets some muffled whines in the background seep through. He gives them the courtesy of waiting a good fifteen seconds before he begins the second round of knocking, more urgent, and after some incoherent shushing and whispering, the door opens.

Ramin stands before him, trying to act all nonchalant with the arm leaning over the door frame. God, is this the kind of monstrosity that’s considered attractive these days? The intimidation tactic fails miserably: one, because he just got his sex interrupted and he looks like living hell. Second, because he’s shaped like a twink at least ten centimeters shorter than Alhaitham himself.

“Hey, looks like we got company,” Ramin greets him with a smile. Alhaitham can sense underlying motivation from a mile away – even if it’s buried under bad breath and foul-smelling alcohol. “Care to join?”

Alhaitham is so thrown off it snaps his attention to the present moment. “Excuse me?”

“I'm just kidding, don't worry.” A burst of laughter, which almost transports him back to high school. “Kaveh does look so sexy though. No wonder you wanted to see it, but I'm afraid this is couples stuff.”

He does too good of a job excentuating the last part. Goddamn, this guy is evil. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just came here because I want to sleep.”

“You want to sleep so you came here instead of your bed?”

Alhaitham wishes he could roll his eyes harder. “Are you dense?”

“Come on, don't be so uptight.” His hand extends towards Alhaitham with a chuckle. “What’s the problem? I thought these could block out sound.”

“Don’t touch them,” Alhaitham slaps his hand off.

“Relax, geez! I was just trying to be helpful.”

At last, Kaveh emerges in the background, hair and makeup messy, clearly having just put on something – oversized t-shirt and a pair of jeans that wasn't even fully zipped up. Somehow, he looks even better casual than he does fully dressed up. “What’s going on?”

“He hit me!” Ramin cries, like a kid in the playground who was just forced to share a toy with his sibling for a few minutes.

“He should keep his nasty hands to himself.”

“They're only nasty because I'm fu–”

“Enough,” Kaveh sighs, embarrassment already creeping in to his face. “You two are acting like children.”

“He started this,” Ramin defends himself. “I was just trying to help settle this so–”

“You were being obnoxious on purpose.” Alhaitham is not even gracing Ramin with the courtesy of eye contact anymore, inste ad talking to Kaveh directly. “Besides, I’m almost deaf, so you can imagine just how loud you two are.”

Kaveh stares at him for a minute, and then sighs. “You’re right. We’ll be quiet now.”

Oh. Agreebleness? That’s not in Kaveh’s nature. A part of Alhaitham is boiling that he’d give in so easily, that he wouldn’t even give him the grace of fighting back.

But Ramin does it in his place: “What the fuck? Whose side are you on?”

“Ramin, please. It’s his house.” Kaveh rolls his eyes somewhat provocatively. “Anyway, he’s just baiting you for reaction. Trust me, it’s better if you don’t indulge it.”

A moment of silence passes through, like cold air on a dead-ridden battlefield. And then, the final verdict from the primary cultprit:  “Fine. I’m not gonna indulge any of this anymore. You two have fun.”

Kaveh stumbles, trying to chase after Ramin as the guy heads for the door. “What are you–?”

“Please, you two are basically at each other’s throats.”

“Because he’s being annoying! Not because I’m into him,” Kaveh explains with disbelief audible in his tone.

“Actually,” Alhaitham follows them towards the living room coolly, “being at each other's throats is an expression. It means to be angry with someone, not to want to make out with them.”

The look on Ramin’s face almost makes Alhaitham proud – all the walls torn down, the real ugly indignation underneath finally beginning to show. “Are you going to let him talk this way to me again?”

Kaveh freezes. And then, at last, he waves a white flag. “If you’d rather go, I understand. You should get some sleep, too.”

“I see.” Ramin smirks, though it’s clear he couldn’t be further from content. “Enjoy.” And then the door slams shut.

Kaveh, on the other hand, looks beyond tired. “Are you happy now? You got what you wanted.”

And he is, of course, but he hides his well-earned smirk. Kaveh learnt his lesson, so there is no need to dig into him any further. Instead, Alhaitham tries to be rational. “We should talk about this tomorrow. I don’t want this to become a regular occurance.”

“Whatever,” Kaveh walks past him as if he didn’t exist. “Enjoy your sleep.”

Kaveh is obviously being sarcastic, but Alhaitham replies with a casually earnest: “You too.”

The truth is, Alhaitham couldn’t be happier. More than happy, quite frankly, as he only intended to get them to be quiet, and now his number one opponent has left his territory. Now all that’s left for tomorrow is some damage control with Kaveh himself, reestablishing the ground rules, and they are good to go. Alhaitham will be able to keep his peace, and Kaveh will be able to keep his house.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Next day, however, Kaveh is nowhere to be found. Alhaitham’s sleep schedule was thrown off, so he wakes up late (by forty minutes), and decides it’s as good of an excuse as any to skip his early class. At no point does Kaveh leave his room.

There’s only a limited amount of time that sitting sternly by the edge of the table with tea evaporating, like an antagonist awaiting confrontation, can be seen as cool, rather than a waste of time. Slowly, feelings of uneasiness begin to creep in. Uselessly – Kaveh probably left for university early, or went out somewhere. But it was too unlike him – the early hour, the cleaniness of the kitchen, the utensils all in tact.

There’s no point in sitting around the lifeless house and delaying what is neccessary. With reluctance, Alhaitham packs his bag and decides to go to work.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Alhaitham remembered the night he officially was nominated for the position – if not for anything else, then for its peculiarity (in hindsight, maybe he should have expected it to set the tone accordingly to the events that followed, but at the time he wrote it off as simply odd).

When he had moved into the city during summer, he was left with overload of free time. It only took him a few days to relocate his stuff, the majority of it taken care of by a moving company – the only thing he really had to invest time in himself was arranging his bookshelves.

Despite his stone cold exterior, he was still merely human, so he appreciated the sentimentality they held (something he found laughable when it came to people, but brought a sense of comfort when it came to inanimate objects), most of them passed directly from his grandmother and his parents. He had no intention of throwing them out, so he tried to make sure he had furniture large enough to contain all of them.

For the most part, it was a smart idea. It only took a day to properly categorize everything, almost turning the house into a miniature library. There was only a few issues.

Firstly, Alhaitham overestimated the space that would be needed, which left almost a whole shelf empty and naked-looking. Secondly, within a little over a week, he had finished reading and at times re-reading all the leftover positions he hadn’t before.

Naturally, having obtained the student status now, he was free to access the university library. Stepping the foot there for the first time, it was a sight unlike any other Alhaitham had seen before. Rows and skyscrapers of books, more than anyone could have read in his lifetime. Or at least anyone that wasn’t Alhaitham. Days passed and he became completely consumed by a whirlwind of the literaturę available.

And here, his strange literary sentimentality, combined with the pointless boredom, perhaps led him to do things he wouldn’t have done otherwise — stealing. It was more of a rescue mission, really, at least in his mind. As much of a law-abiding citizen as Alhaitham was, there was no reason that the most difficult-to-obtain, timeless pieces with so much historical value would have to collect dust and sweat from foul fingertips of students unaware of the objects’ worth (because if they were, they would have probably came to the same conclusion he did a long time ago). Not only that, the library sported tomes of all sorts of different languages, otherwise not found anywhere in the regular bookstores in the city. It was a golden opportunity, and he would have been stupid not to take it.

Alhaitham was a master when it came to knowing his rights and finding loopholes within the laws. The books were all chipped, a flawless system on a surface level, except the foolish confidence it must have inflicted in whoever designed it. Past the closing hours, the gates that triggered the chips were disabled, along with all of the electricity in the building, thanks to some few-years old eco-friendly policy of the town. Moreover, the university’s parsimony that caused the security to become understaffed led to a pretty easy gateway to stealing opportunities. All Alhaitham had to do is stay over past ten in the evening, and the work was practically done for him.

He did not let him be consumed by greed, of course, and he did not want to raise any suspicions either, in case someone was actually keeping tracks of the positions. Within three weeks, he only stocked up his brand new bookshelf with six books that he deemed possessed the most value.

Eventually, only the fourth week of his little mission led to his downfall. It was all his fault, really – perhaps he has grown as overconfident as the idiots who designed this luck–driven system in the first place. That’s why when he was reaching for the newest addition to his collection, the last thing he expected was a woman’s voice.

“Alhaitham,” he almost drops the book at the sound. “What are you doing here, so long past the closing?”

It was a woman Alhaitham has never seen before. At least a head shorter than him, hair at a few tones lighter than his own, was wearing a floor–length dress and a cardigan, nothing resembling a security guard uniform. Most unsettling of all, she was just standing there, smiling.

“Sorry, I got locked in here past closing by accident. I figured I might as well do some reading until it opens.”

The woman laughs, and it’s one of the most charming laughters Alhaitham has heard – objectively, even his complete lack of attraction to the opposite sex could agree.

“By accident? For the fourth time, huh? I never considered you this accident-prone, Alhaitham.”

The woman seemed annoyingly carefree for the whole situation she caught him in. So she’s been observing him? And… “How do you know who I am?”

“Hm. Let’s just say it’s part of my job to know more than everyone about the students.” She reaches out her hand towards him. “My name is Nahida. I am the student advisor.”

Alhaitham shakes her hand, more of an act of confused courtesy than anything else.

“Now, I am sorry to burst your bubble, but we have to discuss your punishment. You know, my superiors wouldn’t take lightly to sneaking into the university property past closing, and when you add theft on top of that…”

“Hold on. I was not doing that. I am at the property past the closing hour, but I did not sneak in there. The rules say nothing about overstaying.” He feels his voice growing more hostile, but he is not the one to give up. After all, there was no evidence of him doing anything illegal in this moment. “Besides, I am just holding this book to read it. I did not steal it.”

“There are cameras up there, you know that?”

“These cameras don’t work.”

Nahida tilts her head. “And how would you know this?”

“Just a guess,” he shrugs. “In any case, I think you should be more concerned with security issues rather than students trying to educate themselves. Perhaps on the next staff meeting?”

Alhaitham tries to leave, but then feels himself touched. When he turns around, however, Nahida is standing way too far from him. Could it have been the wind? The eeriness of this situation was starting to get to him, despite the facade.

“I think maybe you should be the one to bring it up at the next staff meeitng.” Nahida just smiles warmly. “I was just looking for someone to take over me when it comes to the paperwork. All this talking, and spying on students can be draining, even on me, you know?”

“I’m not interested,” Alhaitham says, suspiciously. Who was this woman, and what about the situation screamed the best time to lay out a job proposition, according to her? “Besides, I am not good with people. I would not do well in this.”

“I am not looking for you to be good with people. That’s what I am here for. All you need to do is be blunt, direct, and do your job efficiently.” Nahida smiles, handing him a key over. “Besides, you get an office, a salary, and you don’t have to sneak in here anymore.”

“Paid how much?”

Nahida smiles. “I don’t think it’s relevant.”

Alhaitham could figure out a scam with his eyes closed, so he’s not impressed. “I... did not agree to this.”

“You don’t have to. I think it sounds better than giving all these books you took back, wouldn’t it. How many was it?” She looks him up and down, eyes fixated on the copy in his hand. “Seven?”

“Who are you?” Alhaitham asks again, initial defensiveness evaporated as with a touch of a magic wand.

“I told you already. I am Nahida. And I have a feeling we might be seeing each other in the future.”

Alhaitham was planning on tkaing this story to his grave. Firstly, because he’d never admit to being cought and humiliated like this. Secondly, because there was something ineffable about Nahida’s demeanor that surpassed the realm of logic. Inexplainable things like this were better off staying secret, at least until he could figure them out himself.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Around the afternoon, Kaveh walks into his office. He blinks, then goes back to check if he got the door wrong. “Did you kill Nahida?”

“Nahida was tired of handling such stupid matters,” Alhaitham says matter-of-factly, not looking him in the eye. “Its a long story.”

“She gave you the job?

“She made me take it,” Alhaitham corrects. “Sadly, now I realize why she’d rather not do it herself. It couldn’t be more boring.”

Kaveh glances at the novel in Alhaitham’s hands, which definitely had nothing to do with the paperwork. “You’re complaining about getting paid to sit in an office and read books all day?”

“I have to go through this pile of crap, too.” Alhaitham gestures at the neatly-stacked proposals on his desk. “Although that turns out to be easier than I thought. Annoying, but easy. Most of these dumbasses cannot read the applicaiton rules properly. I rejected around thirty proposals just this week.”

Kaveh swallows, hesitating with the papers he was holding. “Out of?”

“Thirty three.” He smiles. “So, what do you got?”

Kaveh hands him the paperwork. “I really need my practical project this year to be funded. I can’t support it from my own savings anymore after last year, and if I can’t pass this course I might as well–”

“Pages one, four, and seven have a few typos on them,” Alhaitham cuts him off, and hands the pile back. “Page five is completely wrong. You can bring this back tomorrow once it’s fixed.”

Kaveh stands there, aghast. “You didn’t even finish reading!”

“I don’t have to, and you don’t seem like you’re ready to hear more criticism.”

“I spent like three hours going over this.”

“Well, then you wasted your time, and I’m not about to waste mine because of this.” Alhaitham shakes the papers in the air and his roommate finally accepts defeat, and takes them back. “I’m sorry, Kaveh, but rules are rules.”

“You’re not even sorry! You just want to torture me, because you’re mad at Ramin.”

“I’m mildly irritated by both of you, actually. But this has nothing to do with it.” Alhaitham opens his book back, indicating he is about done with this discussion. “I don’t let my private matters interfere with the work I do. I’m just telling you this, because once this goes to the funding board, they will say the same things, and then we’re both unhappy, you’re late to re-apply, you fail your class.”

“Can you at least tell me what I did wrong?”

“Mhm. You’re smart, Kaveh. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

The way Alhaitham emphasizes his name, Kaveh knows he’s trying to make him angrier. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken you up on that offer. You’re just using the house as an excuse to make my life miserable!”

Number one on his list, Kaveh was pretty spot-on. What he should have realized is that the ability to make his life miserable is not an excuse, but currently the sole reason that he can still keep the house.

“I will not let my grace and kindness bear the responsibility of your mistakes. I told you before, you are free to move out at any time. I’m sure your little boyfriend will be thrilled.”

Within half a minute, the office door is shut on him – along with any way to contact Kaveh, it seems. He doesn’t return home either on that night, nor the next. Alhaitham attempts to gauge the severity of the situation in the meantime by contacting Kaveh – well, under the guise of sending him pictures of the cup he has previously washed, which is sporting a few minor spots, or of the dust collecting on the shelves when it’s the other’s turn to take care of that, according to the schedule. Finally, he asks directly when does Kaveh plan on coming back, because his food is bound to rot soon, and Alhaitham does not want any mold seeping through into his part of the fridge.

No response.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Alhaitham should have been happier about this, really. The pros-and-cons list finally begins to look good, without any infuriating disruptions to his returning peace. Still, it feels wrong now. He blocks out all the thoughts that something might be happening to Kaveh, and instead represses, and replaces them with rage. How can a grown man act like such a baby when he’s objectively in the wrong?

It does nothing to soothe his anxiety, though, so – solely for his own sake – Alhaitham gives himself a whole fifty hours before he decides to give up his pride, and come looking for help in someone who might have more information than him.

“I'm kind of busy,” Tighnari states shortly the second he sees the other man.

“Oh, wow. You look like you’ve been through a hurricane.” Tighnari is already closing the door at the comment, but Alhaitham stops him. “Wait. It’s gonna take a few minutes at best. Besides, I’m already inside.” Tighnari rolls his eyes and Alhaitham is sure he is about to tell him to scram again, so he pulls out the big guns: “it’s about Kaveh.”

This doesn’t really seem to concern him, but to get this over with, Tighnari agrees. “Fine. five minutes.”

“Ten.”

“Five. Qhat is so important you had to rush here anyway?”

“Do you know where Kaveh is?”

Tighnari blinks. “That’s what you wanted to ask? This couldn't have been done over the phone?”

“I called you. You didn’t respond.”

“That usually indicates that someone is busy.”

“What’s going on?” A familiar voice comes from the stairs area, and soon enough Cyno materializes next to them, wearing an oversized shirt Alhaitham swears he’s seen on Tighnari before.

Alhaitham’s eyes jump in between the two, and suddenly the post-hurricane look his friend was sporting begun to make logical sense. “Oh. Was I interrupting something?”

Tighnari side eyes Cyno, clearly unhappy with the situation now. “Eh. Kind of.”

Alhaitham doesn’t let it get to him, sitting down on the couch, face between his palms. “First of all, gross. Second of all, you owe it to me. If it hadn't been for your stupid party, none of this would've been happening.”

“What’s none of this again?” Cyno asks.

“Respectfully, I wasn’t talking to you.” Alhaitham rolls his eyes at the interruption. “Kaveh is bringing his stupid boyfriend at night, and he’s being loud on purpose, and it's all a ploy to make me lose sleep and fail all my classes.”

“Right,” Tighnari is a bit tired, but he does find Alhaitham’s stress kind of amusing amidst its annoyance. “Have you considered that maybe you're imagining this? I’m aware Ramin did not act the greatest at the party, but neither did you. It kind of brought out the worst in everyone, anyway.”

The way Tighnari glances at Cyno leads him to believe there was more to the party going on than he initially thought, but he was not going to waste his time trying to get to the bottom of this.

“I'm not here to be a moral judge of his character,” Alhaitham retaliates, although he, in fact, would love to play a moral judge of his character – for the guy whose most memorable moment was fully fueled by a threat of getting behind the wheel intoxicated, which he later blamed on Kaveh. “I just want him to be a bit more respectful of people's boundaries, that's all.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Tighnari asks.

“I can’t find him anywhere. Kaveh. He disappears sometimes, but it’s been too long. We had this… silly disagreement. I can’t tell if he just went over to mingle at his boyfriend’s, or if that Ramin guy got both of them into a drunk driving accident.”

Tighnari walks over to the kettle in the kitchen, prompting it to make screeching sounds. Completely disinterested, it seems. “Are you sure you’re not blowing this out of proportion?”

“I think I’m being too kind, actually.” Alhaitham sighs. “I swear, if I knew this would be such an inconvenience, I would have never let him move in.”

“Then why did you? No offense, but I heard you knew Kaveh for a while. You didn’t predict how emotional and reckless he can get?

Alhaitham ignores the fact that apparently everyone knows about their shared history by now. More importantly, he can't say that if Tighnari saw Kaveh’s face that night, he’d know: how miserable and lost he seemed, how he so-clearly needed help, but couldn’t ask for it.

“Are you seriously gonna judge me? I did more than any of you two could.”

Tighnari exhales. “Aaand you’re starting to act rude now, so I think it’s time we part ways for today.”

“Wait. I just– I don’t know where he’s been. I don’t even know where to look. He’s not picking up, and I assume he’s at his boyfriend’s, but I don’t even know the guy’s number, or where he lives. I need to know where to look.”

Tighnari simply looks over to his friend/lover/whatever. “Cyno?”

Cyno looks over both of them before hanging his gaze on Alhaitham. “Oh, am I part of the conversation now?”

“If you want to just say something you can. I'm not stopping you.”

Cyno hoofs before pretending to go back to being consumed by his phone and the million intelligible videos he was scrolling past.

Why does everyone have to be such babies? “I… apologize if it came off as me ignoring you before. Have you heard anything from Kaveh?”

“I don't even have the time to unpack this ‘apology’. He’s at Ramin’s.”

“Of course he is.” Alhaitham is suddenly angry that he let himself get this worked up while Kaveh was probably in between the sheets of the biggest asshole in this city. “Maybe I should just let them fuck it out until–”

“They’ re not,” Cyno interrupts. “Ramin left days ago for some apprenticeship. That’s why they stayed over at yours that night.”

“And, pray tell, how do you know all this?”

“He’s my housemate.” Upon seeing confusion on Alhaitham’s face, they add: “How do you think these two met?”

“I’m assuming there is a particular reason you've been withholding all this information?”

“Let me think. Was it the voices that told me to shut up and stay out of it? Have I been schizophrenic this whole time?”

Alhaitham rolls his eyes, unimpressed. He bets if Kaveh was there he would make a comment on how insenstive the comment was. How did these two even become friends? “So, it doesn’t bother you when they dont let you sleep at night?”

Cyno shrugs with a visible smirk now. “Never happened to me. Maybe it’s personal.”

“Has Kaveh been saying that?”

“Not… exactly that I heard of. Usually, you’re not the topic of the conversation. But he has complained that youre planning to kick him out and he needs to look for a place again.”

“That literally never happened.” Alhaitham stands up now, finally ready to leave this be. But a part of him gets even more mad that Kaveh would use their purely-professional disagreement, and the previous purely-Kaveh’s-fault disagreement to victimize himself like this. “He’s just blowing this out of proportion for attention.”

Cyno whines. “I don't wanna get between this.”

The following silence lets Alhaitham quickly go over his pros and cons list in his head. He can leave this be, lose Kaveh, and more hours of his sleep. But, he does that and all of the pros of their little agreement would get automatically wiped out as well. And, well, it’s only been three weeks – far too little data to make any definitive statements on whether or not this decision was worth it.

“Can I come talk to him?”

“You know, the twenty-first century gave us this little unknown invention called a phone. If he doesn’t want to respond to that, then—”

“You mean the nineteenth century,” Alhaitham corrects.

“You know what,” Tighnari snaps. “I think you two should go, in fact. Together. I need to work on my assignments.”

“Assignments?” Cyno hoffs. “But–”

But they don’t say anything else. Both of them exchange that look again, one that Alhaitham does not dare comment on.

Cyno finally gets up as well. “Fine. Are you with your car? I could use a ride.”

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Alhaitham steps into the flat – it’s on the first floor, small, and resembles more of a corridor. What stands out most amongst it all is the horrible smell – not the somewhat comforting smell of old apartments, but one of fire – burnt grass, food, or whatever the owners could find to be treated with heat, apparently.

The source of it seem to be the one door furthest on the right, which differs from the others – rather than the light-colored wooden frame, it is a wall opening with a bunch of silver and gold beads hanging down to create a curtain that colorfully shimmers in the sunlight. And upon crossing that entrance, stands Kaveh – an air of smoke coming from the joint in his left hand, and one from the pan he was fighting with his right hand. The sunlight illuminates golden through his hair and casts a golden shadow on the old wooden tiles.

“Eggs and bacon?” Cyno just asks, not minding – or not bothering to comment – on the smell.

Kaveh lets out an exhasperated sigh.

Alhaitham cringes at the nasty emulsion of white, yellow, and orange scrapped from the bottom of the pan. “Wow. This looks like… something.”

Only then does Kaveh turn around to notice Alhaitham. “What is he doing here?”

Talk about deja vu.

“And what are you doing? Smoking pot at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday?” Alhaitham crosses his arms. He might be there to make up with Kaveh, but he won’t just hand it over to him.

“When else am I supposed to smoke?” Kaveh hands the blunt over to Cyno. “Could you please tell me next time you plan to invite him? I need time to mentally prepare.”

“He was my ride.” Cyno shrugs, grabbing a pre-made snack and an energy drink from the fridge. “I'm taking this joint. You two have fun.”

“Where are you going?”

“I got stuff to do.”

“Vandalism?” Alhaitham comments. “And you're gonna leave me alone with him?”

“Funny. I was going to say the same thing.” Kaveh frowns.

“Remember to use a condom!” is the last thing to be heard before Cyno disappears inside his room.

“Fuck! My eggs.” Only now has Kaveh seemed to notice the increasingly loud squirting sound of the oil on the pan, the nastier and nastier smell of the burnt eggs and bacon, before his eyes are faced with the disasterous state of his lunch. Completely clueless, as usual.

“This wouldn’t have happened if your diet consisted of something other than your imaginary beef with me.” Alhaitham cannot even hide his proud smile at that one.

But Kaveh just sighs, turns off the gas and opens the fridge to find a suitable replacement for his meal, having to pick between scattered fruit, half-opened cans, and more energy drinks.

“So, are you not going to talk to me at all?”

“What are we supposed to talk about?”

“Let me see. You. Your boyfriend staying over. Your project proposal that you took so personally you stopped showing up in your house for days.” Alhaitham counts on his fingers to drive his point home. “I’m still waiting for the revised version, by the way.”

“Not my house,” Kaveh corrects, closing the fridge in frustration, empty-handed. “It’s yours, and you made that perfectly clear.”

“All I asked for was some peace and quiet at night.”

“And I gave it to you. I’m here, you can be by yourself all you wish, and yet you’re still looking for ways to harass me.” He turns on his heel and walks towards the door on the opposite side of the hallway. So dramatic.

“Don’t be unreasonable, Kaveh.”

“Stop calling me—” As soon as Kaveh opens the door, a quick shadow sprints through the flat. “Mehrak! Wait”

Standing closer, Alhaitham runs in the ktichen’s direction to be greeted by a truly peculiar sight – a fat calico cat jumping across the furniture to reach for the clearly inedible remains of burnt food on the pan.

“Alhaitham, can you—”

But when Kaveh steps food in the kitchen, an even more peculiar sight emerges – his vile, mean roommate with the cat purring comfortably in his hands. “Hey. Bad kitty. You don’t wanna get poisoned by Kaveh’s idea of food, do you?” What’s worse, Alhaitham is speaking to the animal with his stoic attitude, the calmest words of praise that Kaveh has ever heard.

“You’re… fast,” Kaveh settles on that. “Thanks.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m just… surprised she’s letting you hold her. It took her, like, two months before she let Ramin do it without scratching him.”

Alhaitham puts the cat down on the floor, but Kaveh stops him. “Don’t! She’ll try to jump up again. Let’s just—can you bring her to the room?”

Alhaitham nods and follows Kaveh. The room – Ramin’s room – looks like a mess, thousands of paper sketches flying around, a pile of half a dozen empty dishes stacked on top of each other, ink spilled in some places. Guess I know who he got it from.

“Sorry about the mess. I’m still cleaning it up.” He closes the door and signals to the other that it’s okay to let the cat go now. Like a switch, there’s no trace of the cheetah-like parkour jumper, instead the kitten nuzzles into Kaveh’s and then Alhaitham’s legs.

“She really likes you,” Kaveh observes, still surprised.

Alhaitham just nods, unsure what the appropriate answer to that is supposed to be. “She’s not Ramin’s cat?”

“Sorry?” Kaveh moves around some stuff from the bed to make some space to sit.

“You said earlier it took her a while to get used to… Ramin. I thought she was his.”

“Oh, no.” Kaveh laughs as if he said something amusing. “She’s Cyno’s. Well, she used to be mine at first, but… it’s a long story.” Kaveh finally sits on the bed, letting out a sigh he’s been holding in. “My previous landlord – the asshole – didn’t want pets, and I didn’t really have the money… But I couldn’t bring myself to give her away, and she already… well, Cyno didn’t mind, so we figured she should stay here.”

Alhaitham chuckles in disbelief. “And where does the university dropout get the money for that?”

“They rob banks for a living,” Kaveh says casually.

“Oh.”

Kaveh laughs at Alhaitham’s expression. “I’m kidding. They draw furry porn.”

“Oh. That’s… worse. And you let your cat stay with them?”

“Hey, don’t make it weird. A job is a job. They take better care of her than I could.”

Alhaitham thinks of suggesting her to move in now, but it seems like a boundary crossed, especially with Kaveh’s own current indecisiveness on the place. So he leaves it be, and just asks instead:

“How old is she?”

“Five? Six?” Mehrak lets out a meow as Kaveh picks her to his lap. “She’s still just a baby.”

“You don’t know exactly?” Alhaitham chuckles, trying to capitalize on the somewhat less-tense atmosphere. “What, she didn’t come with adoption papers?”

Kaveh winces. “I told you it’s a long story.”

With that, Alhaitham takes a clue to drop the subject. He’s scanning his head for potential conversation topics that are the least likely to make Kaveh upset, but the first thing that comes out is far from ideal:

“How about we order some food?” Alhaitham opens the app on his phone. “You must still be hungry after your failed attempt at lunch.”

Kaveh gives him a glance at first, but then he chuckles. “God, can you ever try to say something nice without turning it into a backhanded comment?”

“I’ll try to work on it, if you work on being a bit quieter at night.”

“This again?” Kaveh whines, and tries to change the subject immediately. “Fine. I’ll order. But you’re paying.”

Alhaitham lets him take his phone, but tries again: “I’m not doing this to make you angry. You realize we will have to talk about this eventually?”

Kaveh scrolls up and down the menu mindlessly, but Alhaitham can tell he’s trying to find the words in his head. “We don’t. I’ve been trying to find a new place these past few days. I’m really trying, it’s just—"

“I wasn’t trying to kick you out. I just wanted my boundaries to be more respected.”

“I know.”

“Then why? Why do all of this?”

“I told you already, I tried to get him to be quiet. He’s just… he can be difficult sometimes.” Finally, Kaveh taps on the phone and hands it back. “You’re probably gonna think it’s funny, but he has this crazy idea in his head – since the party – that you’re his sworn enemy, and… I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to piss you off on purpose.”

Well, at least they had one thing in common. Still, Alhaitham has to be the bigger person, at least now when he’s talking to Kaveh, if he does not want this conversation to end like the previous ones. “You know, it’s not my place to judge…” Alhaitham is one-hundred percent judging, “…but wouldn’t it be easier if you just… stopped inviting him? You can meet here, and do whatever you want, but I simply don’t think I’m going to be able to get used to this.”

“I was trying to.” There it was, creeping in again – the frustrated desperation in Kaveh’s voice. “He just doesn’t listen. He shows up, unannounced, and how am I supposed to kick him out? He’s my boyfriend.”

“Sounds like he should work on respecting you more.”

He stares at the kitten, peacefully drifting away under the soft, but rapid caress of Kaveh’s fingers. Perhaps that was the reason Kaveh was even able to keep his cool right now. Mehrak, the mediator.

“Look, I’m not blind either. I know his intense dislike is mutual. And I know he wasn’t acting the greatest at a party, but it was partially my fault. I can be more concerned with my own feelings sometimes, and… well, he said he was sorry. If you met him on any other day, you would say he’s the sweetest person in the world. He was under a lot of stress, and he acted out, and… well, he’s jealous of you.”

Alhaitham tries to retain as much information as possible from Kaveh’s poorly-constructed vent of excuses. The last thing, however, causes him to stare for a good minute.

“Jealous?”

“I know it’s silly. I mean, we’re—I don’t get it either. He has this idea in his head that you’re a long-lost lover from my past, that I’m going to cheat on him, and leave him for you.”

Alhaitham forces out a chuckle. “That… is silly. Or imbecilic.”

Kaveh nods, and again, the conversation dies down. And Alhaitham still has not received a confirmation that Kaveh would be returning.

“So, how did you two meet?”

“Well, I was staying at this place for a while before – long story – and he moved in after I moved out. He was one of Cyno’s acquintaces. He’s also an artist – he does tattoos. I guess we just connected.”

“Ah.” Alhaitham is already bored of this story. Frankly, he’s not sure why he asked in the first place. But Kaveh was smiling as he was talking about it, perhaps more than he’s seen in the past few days. Infuriating as it was, maybe Alhaitham was wrong. Insane as it was, Alhaitham was seriously starting to consider that maybe Kaveh really liked this guy, for whatever reason, and he’s the one who’s this little devil who was trying to break them up and cause him misery. Maybe—

“What the fuck is going on?” Speak of the devil. The door swings open, and Ramin stands there, and he looks pissed. On top of it, the cat sprints out the door again.

“Mehrak!” Kaveh tries to run after her, but Ramin doesn’t budge.

“You have crazy balls to invite him into my house.”

“I was just leaving, actually.” Alhaitham excuses himself, and Ramin lets him pass through. Picking up the cat, he can merely overhear the voices getting louder from the other room. He may have some sympathy for his housemate, but he also has eyes, ears, and a brain – and he has yet to witness this mythical sweetheart that Kaveh was speaking of with such conviction.

Their conversation ceases momentarily as he drops Mehrak back into the room. “I’ll get going. Sorry for interrupting.”

“Thanks,” Kaveh mouths, taking Mehrak into his arms again. “I’ll see you home.”

Alhaitham nods, and leaves. Intense as it was, he couldn’t help but be somewhat proud of himself for managing a few niceties out – and it appeared that karma had his back, since it was enough for Kaveh to indicate he will be coming back.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

One novella. A hundred and ninety five pages. Approximately four to five hours. That was how long it took for Kaveh to get back home.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. Hunched over slightly, eyes red and dry, nose sniffling. Alhaitham stands there, in their living room, and tries to utilize his observation and deduction skills to figure out what happened. A fight, that’s sure. Eyes redder than usual, puffed just as much as his cheeks. Marijuana was a likely cause, but so was a whole bunch of ugly crying. Did this idiot hit him? Worse? He can feel blood begin to boil inside him.

But before Alhaitham has to put any of his theories to the test, Kaveh provides him with the truth: “We broke up.”

“Oh.”

Oh. That’s all he manages to utter. This was supposed to be a triumphant moment – his enemy finally losing, being taken down for good. No more annoying glares, no more unslept nights. Then again, seeing life evaporated from Kaveh, Ramin landed one last hit, sucking the joy out of his ultimate victory.

“I just came to get some money. I’m going out to the bar.” He stumbles towards his room. “So you don’t have to worry about me being too loud tonight—”

“Kaveh,” Alhaitham brushes over Kaveh’s hand just slightly, so to not overstep any boundary, but to still get enough of his attention to get him to stop walking. “You can’t go out like this. You look like you’re half-alive.”

Kaveh starts to sob, but washes the tears away with his sleeves. “I really thought it was gonna be different. I’m so stupid…”

“Come on. Sit down.” Alhaitham is not sure how to deal with his, but he figures he migth as well try what worked last time Kaveh was around this level of emotional distress. “Water?”

Kaveh shakes his head. “Try scotch.”

Alhaitham sighs. After a bit of ruffling, he returns with two glasses and a bottle of Prosecco. “First water. Then you can get some wine.”

“One bottle of wine?” Kaveh hoarses out, though at least he managed to the waterfall from his eyes under control. “You make the bar option sounds more and more tempting.”

“One bottle for the two of us. If you’re still standing by the time we’re done, we can get something stronger.”

“We?”

“I’m not gonna leave you alone.”

Kaveh exhales, gaze moving towards the couch pillows. “Thanks, but… I think I’d rather be alone.”

“Really?”

It takes about a minute to get a reply. “No. I don’t wanna be alone.”

“Alright. There, there. Water,” Alhaitham encourages Kaveh to drink a glass, and then another. “You can do this. Think of the wine.”

“You treat me like an alcoholic.”

“Well—”

“Hey!” Kaveh seems offended, though his muscles appear to relax a bit, so maybe the joke brought him a bit of light-heartedness. “You can’t be mean to me when I’m trying to get over my ex-boyfriend.”

“Fine. You get five working days of me being nice to you, because you’re going through a breakup. But no more than that.”

Kaveh opens the wine’s cork as soon as he’s done with water, pouring both of them a full glass immediately. “You will never be able to be nice to me for five days. Hell, you wouldnt even make it past tonight.”

“Want to bet on it?” Alhaitham offers. “Loser does dishes for a month.”

“You think I’m stupid?” Kaveh takes a sip, then another, from his glass. “The only thing you would hate more than having to be nice to me is losing to me.”

And they both laughed, somehow. Kaveh did not cry anymore that night – perhaps the four hours before he came back drained all the tears out of his eye sockets, and maybe even all the fluids keeping his body going, as it only took a couple glasses of wine for him to fall asleep on the living room couch. Alhaitham smiles as he watches Kaveh from above the kitchen counter, finishing the cleaning up. Somehow, he thought, maybe there was more of the illogical ineffability to his actions than there was to sticking strictly to the pros-and-cons list. Or maybe some elements simply carried more value than the others: and being able to see Kaveh fall asleep peacefully in their house was a good trade for more-than-occasional brawls, burnt eggs, and a couple of missing dishes.