Chapter Text
KAVEH: PART ONE
This is the first一
When Faranak broke the news to Kaveh, sometime during his later years at the Akademyia, that she would be taking a trip to Fontaine, the world fell apart. And no, not literally, but his reaction was not a gross over-exaggeration because it truly felt as though his world was falling apart and he did everything in his power to piece the ground back together as it broke beneath his feet but, alas, he was not skilled or quick enough and his mother was certain this is what she wanted, having made up her mind long before she decided to tell Kaveh. No amount of begging and crying was going to change her mind, and so he encouraged her, reassured her that he would be fine.
That was the way it was going to be.
And when he learned that she had found a job there, he felt it. Kaveh felt it the moment he received the letter from her: the seed broke open in his chest and unfurled around his heart, blossoming thorns and growing between his ribs. He hadn’t been able to clock it then, hadn’t found a word to describe what he was feeling, but now he knows it.
Loneliness.
He wasn’t even alone yet. There was still some time left before Faranak left to permanently pursue a different life, and yet, to Kaveh, it still felt as though she left that day his father died. They were silent as they walked out along the darkened streets of Sumeru, silent as they found some random bench to sit on. It was then, under the setting sky, that Faranak finally showed something more than her assertion and cried. She cried into her son’s shoulder, and Kaveh cried into hers. That was it.
Kaveh’s twentieth birthday was the first birthday he had spent without his mother一the first year they couldn’t spare the time to visit one another一and the first birthday he allowed his fellow peers to celebrate with him.
That night, once the cake had been eaten and the celebration had ended, Kaveh shut himself in behind the door of his small dorm room and felt it again. The unfurling always starts in his chest. An ache that’s sharp enough to feel, but dull enough to ignore. It's tight, squeezing his heart and growing up his throat.
For the first time in his life, Kaveh discovered what it was like to truly be alone.
一but not the last.
*
It is nice to have space at the end of the day, where he can finally be honest. He hangs his pretend happy face on the wall by the coat rack, and sheds the armor he puts on every morning, and lets himself sink into his emotions, regardless of how shitty they may be.
But the moment Kaveh steps foot into his dorm room and shuts the door behind him, he notices it. It always begins in his chest and, at an alarming rate, engulfs him entirely. It weaves between the gaps in his chest cavity and sinks into his veins and becomes part of him. Moments like these are what loneliness feeds off of. It lies dormant, waiting for him to arrive home after a long day and let his shoulders slump forward, and here is where it festers. Budding and blooming and consuming.
In theory, loneliness is an easy thing to fix: find more friends, reach out to those who he knows care. Every time they recoil, unwilling to offer an olive branch of hope to a social leper, and so it deepens. There are nights it takes hold of him. All he can do in those long dark hours is bask in it and wish it away, breathe, look for a suitable distraction.
Loneliness is his only dependable friend and that is less than comforting.
Kaveh kicks off his shoes, discarding them on the entry mat, and moves further into the uncomplicated space, flipping on the lights provided to him by older students in Ksharhrewar. The small space is illuminated in an orange glow that might be considered cozy if it weren’t so empty. His bed is at the back of the room, separated from the small desk area by a simple room divider.
He does not venture to the communal kitchen to cook dinner and instead collapses on his bed, feet dangling off the edge. On the small end table beside the bed sits a daunting envelope the color of cream, with beautiful flowery writing addressed to him from his mother. It's been days since he received it, days he’s been avoiding reading it. Faranak’s letters are always light and pleasant. She fills her son in on the happenings of her life, the things she sees and the people she meets, the boring everyday things they might talk about if they saw each other in person.
Without sitting up, Kaveh lifts a hand and grabs the letter, ever so carefully peeling the envelope open. The paper inside is thick and folded into thirds, the way his mother always packs them. Once the letter is smoothed out, he reads. It's shorter than the rest, a little less detailed than what he’s used to.
I met someone, she wrote, he’s a nice man. I think you’d like him. I hope for you to meet him someday.
And he wonders if this man is her new soulmate, if time has finally allowed his mother to move on from his father, for the world to finally be clear for her once more. She deserves it, to be happy.
Even if his sadness is trying to overpower the happiness, he will lie to himself if that's what it takes to convince his brain otherwise. He has to. Kaveh is happy for her.
But it seems like everywhere Kaveh looks, his friends have found their soulmates, and he’s so happy for them, too. He wants their joy. However, it still hurts a little when it feels like, everywhere he looks, everyone has someone.
Everyone but Kaveh.
I wanted to tell you sooner but life gets in the way. I’m sure you understand, dear.
Kaveh gets it. He understands. Her new life is her priority now.
Are you happy?
She signs her name in her signature flowery lettering and that is where this letter ends.
Chewing the inside of his cheek, Kaveh juggles the question in his head. Is he happy? He has a roof over his head and he’s pursuing a goal he set for himself when he was young. His peers are all good people, whom he gets along with well, and he gets to study where his father once had every day. The lifelong dream of making it here, of standing right where he is and will, has been fulfilled.
All signs should point to yes, he is happy.
With so little conviction he can hardly convince himself of the truth of his words, he says out loud, “I am,” and becomes the biggest liar in the world.
*
Loneliness sits on the back of his neck as he attempts to stand straighter. He cuts his nails too close to the skin and it takes everything in him just to get out of bed to do the one thing he’s always loved. He laughs and drinks booze with his friends when they invite him out but something feels off. Something always feels off.
His voice sounds different, his skin doesn’t feel like it's his anymore. Laughter doesn’t flow the way it once had.
But his heart is open, more open than it's ever been.
He’s done everything he’s wanted, with so much still left for the future.
Where is he now?
He has so much space for love.
He yearns for a quiet love now, something he can crawl into bed with after a hard day when the nights are cold. Something peaceful to come home to.
That is what he needs, he thinks, but he is alone, isn’t he?
Even if someone were to be here, he would feel alone. Maybe it's them, maybe it's his fatal flaw, to always feel lonely despite being in a room full of people.
Is this who he has become, he thinks, is this quiet pain really all his?
And he wonders where he can hide it without hurting himself and everyone around him, because they don’t deserve it. But it's here, in his small dorm, in his budding laughter as he tries to choke it down, and in the empty bottles sitting on his messy bar tables.
Waiting for him to swallow it back down again.
*
Alhaitham is beautiful.
Though his face is a blur of color, his features hardly distinguishable, Kaveh knows this to be a fact. He’s tall and lanky; his hands are large; his hair is a mess of silver strands as straight as pins.
He stands just beyond the small cluster of students gathered in the library, completely oblivious to their presence as he pulls books for the shelves, observes the covers, and slides them back into their places, only keeping a few. A small stack is cradled between his arm and body.
Kaveh recognizes the features he can make out against the blur from the previous years' annual books containing photos from every student separated by their Darshan followed by their academic level. For a moment Kaveh had lingered on Alhaitham, fingers tracing the name and the outline of his small frame in the portrait taken of him.
This is the first time Kaveh has seen Alhaitham; usually, it was in passing as they moved through the Akademiya and in the many annuals documenting their years at the school. They have never spoken let alone been in the same space together for more than a brief pocket of time.
It is a well-known fact between him and his peers that he might have had a crush on Alhaitham when he first saw him. How can you like him? You don’t even know what he fully looks like! And they were right, yet, the pull he felt towards Alhaitham, despite knowing next to nothing about him, was not so easily ignored, like a loose thread on the end of your hoodie you just want to keep pulling on.
It was a fleeting crush, but Kaveh, much like with every other feeling, let it consume him. It was merely physical, though the mysterious nature of Alhaitham did little to ease the attraction.
Kaveh dares not approach him yet.
Right there, in that moment, Kaveh decides that he is going to be friends, at the very least, with Alhaitham. He is going to break that guy's defenses down and wiggle his way into his life because what else does he have to do?
What else can he do to distract himself from the expanding hole in his chest? Alhaitham looks lonely, and Kaveh is lonely.
Best case: he earns himself a new friend.
Worst case: this ends the way everything else in Kaveh’s life has一with someone leaving.
*
His first attempt at an approach falls flat.
“Hey! You’re from一”
He is completely ignored, save for the sharp look Alhaitham sends his way.
Alhaitham keeps to himself. He speaks to no one and even goes out of his way to avoid unnecessary interaction.
So Kaveh avoids interaction for a while.
He spends the first week watching Alhaitham. And not in the way a stalker might watch his prey, but in the way someone might obverse someone from across a bar, with curious and lingering eyes. His movements, which are elegant, and his facial expressions, which never seem to change. Not once does Alhaitham crack a smile or suggest anything more than his usual stoic stare. If Kaveh were to put a name to it, he might call in loneliness.
Later, when Kaveh rushes back to his small dorm he has a quill and paper in hand before his shoes fall from his feet. He’s writing to his mother, finally telling her about his studies and his friends. He tells her everything, save for the more tough details regarding the loneliness that only ever seems to be growing heavier and heavier inside him.
His pen stumbles at her question.
Are you happy?
Could he lie to her? Would it even be a lie to say yes, he is happy. This is the happiest he’s been in so many years and while on some days that does hold true, on most it doesn’t. On most, it feels as though the loneliness that sits inside his chest is slowly consuming him from the inside out and he doesn’t know how to stop it, doesn’t know if he can, if he wants to.
It's familiar to feel this way.
Safe.
He hates it and yet.
And yet he can’t find the strength to do anything about it.
*
Loneliness is a strange thing.
One day, out of thin air, it appears, quiet and still, and sits by his side, stroking his arm, as if they were friends who were recently reunited. It seeps beneath his skin and wraps itself around his bones so tight some nights he isn't sure he'll be able to take a breath. It leaves tears in his heart, lies next to him at night, follows him wherever he goes. It's a hand clasping only to yank him under the surface when he's struggling to swim.
He could hide away in a secret crawl space, hardly big enough for his body, underneath a set of stairs and it would still find him, would still make room for itself. He doesn't have to do anything at all to feel it. One moment it will be gone, he will think he is free and ready to move on, and suddenly it's heavier than before.
He wonders, often, what they might say if he brought forth his pain. In all their love and companionship, would they be able to look beyond and even begin to understand the depths of his loneliness? Would they know what he means when he tells them he wakes up in the mornings and, with his reflection staring back, wonders if he is real, if his loneliness is as tangible and alive as it seems?
What might they offer, if anything at all?
Would they shun him? Run away screaming in the opposite direction because there's no one a person can feel all that he does? Would they remove him from their lives because they can't let the hole in his chest swallow them up too, it's too big of a risk.
Is it contagious? Can they carry little bits of it away with them after every hug? Will they, too, be afflicted with the same bitter, wretched companion as him?
Is it only for him to carry?
Perhaps this feeling will follow him until the day he dies. At his funeral, it won't give a speech about the long years spent together, and will instead give a bow and accept the accolades for a job well done. It stuck by him, a loyal companion indeed.
Sometimes he wishes he could be someone else, anywhere else, and most of the time he reels himself back in, knowing there is no one but him who could live with the weight of his loneliness.
But he always doubts…
Can he?
Will he?
Should he?
*
Quickly, Kaveh learns and soon adapts to Alhaitham’s schedule: he is in the library most days in the afternoon during the large gap that could be considered a lunch period. He’s there in the morning, only briefly as he returns borrowed books, and very rarely is there after hours when everyone else has gone home.
He doesn’t know where this sudden pull is having him conveniently plant himself in the library at these times, lingering and watching, or why there’s even a pull at all when there are plenty of others who are more approachable than Alhaitham that he could mingle with. There are other people, Kaveh tells himself, but they don’t appeal to him. Their gravitational pulls are that of comets and asteroids, wheezing by and hardly tugging, whereas Alhaitham is something much larger. The earth, perhaps, keeping Kaveh tidally locked and he doesn’t understand it, the logic behind it, if there is any. There mustn’t be if he’s so desperately interested in a man he’s never had a full conversation with.
One day, Alhaitham is the only one in the library. He’s sitting at a table with a pile of books on the surface as he leans back in a chair, his ankle resting across the opposite thigh, while reading a book on ancient text.
“Can I sit with you?” Kaveh asks but he’s already sliding into a chair across from Alhaitham, “so you’re not alone?”
“And if I want to be alone?”
“No one wants to be alone.”
“I do.”
“I think you’re a liar,” Kaveh, like the hypocrite he is, says confidently.
Alhaitham grows visibly tired, clearly not in the mood for useless arguments, and gives in. “Whatever.”
They’re silent as Alhaitham reads and Kaveh attempts to roughly sketch an idea for a building he had while tossing and turning in his bed the night before. He can’t help but flick his eyes from Alhaitham’s blurred face to the page and back up again, and soon, before he’s able to fully register that his hand was acting separately from his brain, he realizes that he’s drawn Alhaitham’s face. And although he doesn’t know the exact composition of Alhaitham’s features一 his eyes are sharp, if his cheekbones are high and sculpted, if his nose is hooked or straight一he can make out general shades and tones, and the space between his brows, eyes, nose, and lips. What comes together on the page is a hypothesis of what he might look like.
He’s handsome and Kaveh is certain that statement would not waver if the day were to come where he met and fell in love with his soulmate, granting him the ability to see faces through clear eyes.
Embarrassment wafts over him and he’s quick to flip the page to the next blank one, unsure if Alhaitham managed to catch a peak of his portrait. Red heat creeps over Kaveh’s cheeks and expands further down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his uniform. He tugs at it in a futile attempt to reduce the heat and sighs the material doesn’t budge.
The silence is loud and Kaveh can’t stand it.
“So, you’re in Haravatat?”
“Is there something you want from me?” Alhaitham evades Kaveh’s question with one of his own, and to say it catches Kaveh off guard would be an understatement.
“What?”
Alhaitham’s eyes sharpen into a glare. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you hanging around? You’re annoying, like a fly that won’t go away no matter how much you swat at it. So, I’ll ask again: is there something you want from me?”
“I just want to be your friend,” Kaveh defends.
And now Alhaitham is the one to be surprised. Without a hint of snark, he asks, “Why?”
It could be accusatory, sure, with undertones of an ulterior motive, or he, as Kaveh believes, doesn’t understand why Kaveh would want to be friends with him.
“You look like a pretty lonely guy and… maybe I’m the same way.” It's heavy, as he admits it for the first time out loud. I’m lonely, and it suddenly has a sense of trueness to it, that maybe before he might’ve only been thinking it, and now that he’s spoken it into existence, he cannot take it back. “It's a match made in heaven, don’t you think?”
Alhaitham huffs. “I don’t mind being alone.”
“Well I do, and I don’t care what you say, we’re friends now.”
“We aren’t.”
“Acquaintances?”
“Not even close.”
“So then we’re friends because we definitely aren’t strangers.”
Alhaitham sighs, defeated, and says, “Whatever.”
In truth, Kaveh thought it would be much harder to wedge himself into Alhaitham’s existence, much harder than some hovering and hardly any pestering. And Alhaitham strikes Kaveh as the stubborn type to stand his ground, especially against something like this一if he truly doesn’t mind being alone一but his sigh is weak and he gives in nearly right away.
Curious.
But Kaveh won’t complain. He got what he wanted.
Friendship acquired.
*
He blinks his eyes, two of them and feels his fingers, ten of them the nails the tips the uncountable cracks and lines two palms two hands with five fingers each fivefivefivefivefive. Lips, dry and cracked, teeth, many teeth, he tries to count and loses track one tongue running along his teeth running back forth back forth back back forth forth back forth
b a c k
f o r t h.
He often reminds himself to breathe.
Every night he comes face to face with loneliness, and it's smiling and inviting, telling him stories with words he can’t comprehend but he knows it's speaking to him because lips, two, are moving and then allatonce its seeps into hisskinhisbones
it rushes up his legs, spirals up up up, weaves itself around and between his hips, unfurls in the pit of his stomach, climbing up his insides with it's thorns, latching on, never l e t t i n g go until it's in his throat, snaking around his skull, behind his eyes, resting there
whispering in his ears.
He often reminds himself to breathe.
Breathe.
Inhale, onetwothreefourfive, exhale, onetwothreefourfive.
The only thing he knows about what sits underneath his skin is that it is full of lack of matter. And he is trying to regurgitate the nothingness, because maybe then this loneliness will stop clinging to him, but it is caught in his throat.
He looks in the mirror and his reflection appears whole, as always. There is nothing visibly missing. If someone peeled back his skin and ripped out his ribs, would they see it? The vast emptiness? The way his body defies logic because it is always debated that nothingness doesn’t exist, that it is impossible, but there is a vacuum inside him and it is loneliness and it is inhaling everything inside him, leaving nothing.
He reminds himself to breathe.
Because if he doesn’t, he won’t, so he does.
Breathe.
*
“What do you get out of invading my space and personal time?” Alhaitham asks the next day when Kaveh finds him in the library again. “Entertainment?”
“No? I just thought you looked like you could use a friend?”
“I don’t want friends. I don’t need them.” He closes his book in a single motion. “Perhaps some self-reflection is in order.”
Alhaitham rises to his feet. Turns on his heels without a word and leaves.
Kaveh drops his head onto the table and digs his teeth into the flesh of his cheeks. He thought he might’ve had a breakthrough with Alhaitham yesterday. He did say, Whatever, after all, but it seems as though that “breakthrough” wasn’t much of anything at all.
No matter, this is just a blip, an obstacle he can easily work around.
*
Okay, maybe it isn’t going to be as easy as Kaveh thought. The following days look a little something like this:
Kaveh shows up in the library and sits across from Alhaitham while he reads. Alhaitham notices him. He leaves.
Their initial interaction must’ve soured what might’ve been and Kaveh realizes that perhaps he is at fault. He clocked Alhaitham as lonely, whether that was by choice or not didn’t matter at the time, but now it's very apparent that Alhaitham is more than content with his own company. He has no desire to fit in with others, not in the way Kaveh so desperately wants, and Kaveh has been operating under the assumption that they were the same.
He is wrong.
They’re far more different than Kaveh thought and given this newfound information, he adjusts his strategy slightly. Yes, he still plops himself down in front of Alhaitham, but before he’s given a chance to leave, Kaveh blurts, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Alhaitham stills.
“I want to be friends just because. You seem… interesting and not in an “I wanna study you” kind of way but in an “I want to learn more about you” kind of way. And I totally get it you’re upset with me but I wasn’t trying to insult you so if you want to leave you’re more than welcome―”
Gone.
Kaveh should’ve expected that; he gave Alhaitham permission, after all, but he thought that by explaining himself a little bit the air between them could be cleared. Again, he was wrong.
*
“Do you hate me or something?” Kaveh slams his hands down on the table and quickly earns himself an array of various voices shushing him. “You left yesterday.”
“You said, and I quote, that ‘if you want to leave you’re more than welcome’. I took you up on the offer.”
Kaveh’s shoulders sag forward. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”
Alhaitham peaks at Kaveh before returning his attention back to his book. “No.”
“Oh.” Kaveh frowns. “Then why did you keep leaving?”
“I don’t think that matters anymore. You’ve made yourself known, quite loudly at that, and at this point, it would take more effort to ignore you than it would to let you sit here.”
“So, what, you’re too lazy to ignore me? Is that it?”
“Lazy isn’t the term I would use, but in layman's terms, yes.”
Narrowing his eyes, Kaveh asks, “Are you always this rude?”
“Honest.”
“Honesty can be rude,” Kaveh mumbles.
“How others perceive it isn’t my problem.”
This might’ve been a mistake, but Kaveh, admittedly, could not deny nor ignore the pull he felt when he saw Alhaitham in the library for the first time, and he did not, does not, want to fight against it. It means something to him now, however, he isn’t sure he’s capable of dealing with Alhaitham’s permanent attitude.
No wonder this guy has no friends. Even if he wasn’t totally antisocial, it's not like anyone would want to deal with his snide remarks and prickly exterior anyway.
Then again, Kaveh has come this far, hasn’t he? And he’s never been known to be a quitter.
“You’re unbelievable,” he mutters under his breath, “Truly unbelievable.”
"You're the one who decided to befriend me," Alhaitham quips.
"I know that!"
Heads whip towards him and shush him, rather violently, grumbling quietly to themselves as they refocus on their work. Heat warms his cheeks and he drops his head into his hands, hiding his face.
“Weren’t you ever taught to use your inside voice?” Alhaitham asks, amusement hidden within his voice.
Kaveh really wants to punch him.
And not punch him.
He peaks at Alhaitham from between his fingers, face still hot with embarrassment, and through the blurred features he sees what he thinks is the ghost a smile, a hint of the corner of his lips turned upwards ever so slightly. Progress, he says to himself, he’s made progress.
*
Alhaitham doesn’t leave when Kaveh seats himself at his table.
He doesn’t argue about his space being invaded.
He doesn’t fight Kaveh’s existence.
He lets it happen.
And on good days, really good days, he might inquire about Kaveh’s studies, how they’re going, asking in depth what kinds of things a student of Kshahrewar might study.
He asks, “And when you graduate? What are your plans then?”
“Well, I’ll become an architect,” Kaveh tells him.
And what he doesn’t say is that he will build himself a home. A home without any heavy memories attached; a home with a kitchen and sitting room and a place for him to hang his faces after a long day; a home with large windows so he may be able to look at the world as it passes by him, as an onlooker instead of a participant, so that he can observe without the fear of his burdens hurting those around him; a home for him to store his loneliness in.
He will build himself a home.
And if they’re still friends by then, Kaveh will invite Alhaitham over for coffee, to chat and catch up, to drown out his loneliness for a fleeting moment, and at the end of the day, when Ahaitham leaves, Kaveh will be reminded of the loneliness that lays like a blanket over his heart. He will look out his large windows and people watch, wishing to be among them, and he will let the loneliness fester.
He will build himself a home.
And he will bury the feelings that threaten to consume him.
*
It's becomes easy.
Easy to talk to Alhiatham and sit with Alhaitham and exist with Alhaitham. After the initial intimidation wore off, Kaveh found that he is not a terrible conversationalist when he actually wants to put in the effort, and even when they aren’t speaking, something about his presence brings a kind of comfort to Kaveh’s soul that he hasn’t known in years.
The first time he feels it, the warmth and simplicity of it all, they’re in Kaveh’s dorm for the first time. Studying and reading, occasionally talking but for the most part, the room was silent besides the flipping of textbook pages and the scribbling of pens on paper. It was, in short, a total nonevent. Nothing of worth or extravagant happened, and yet, upon a shared look across the room一from where Kaveh was laying on his bed to where Alhaitham sat at the small desk一he felt it.
Comfort.
Easiness.
So easy to ask, “Wanna study in my dorm?” one day when the library is busier than what they’re used to. While Kaveh doesn’t mind the business, he notices the frown on Alhaitham’s face that only deepens as the House of Daena grows louder and louder.
And Alhaitham says, “Sure,” and maybe Kaveh imagines it, maybe he’s looking and hoping for false realities, but the way in which Alhaitham spoke, the quickness without a moment of thought, ignites a thought within Kaveh. Easy.
Is it possible for Alhaitham to find this friendship of theirs just as easy as Kaveh?
The thought, just like many others he’s had, is quickly buried and forgotten about.
*
“I did not expect your room to be so plain,” Alhaitham comments bluntly the first time he enters Kaveh’s space.
“Ah, well.” Kaveh shrugs. He tried to decorate when he first started staying in the Akademiya, and for a while, he kept the stupid paintings and weird trinkets he found. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never make it feel right. Aside from old family photos, the walls are empty.
If Alhaitham wants to say more, he doesn’t. He makes himself at home, more than Kaveh ever has, and sits himself at the small desk tucked away in a corner, and Kaveh crawls onto his bed. Knees up and a sketchbook resting on them like a table, Kaveh watches Alhaitham from overtop the edges of the pages.
His pencil works in long, light strokes and he knows he should be studying, it was the whole reason they came here, but the opportunity presented itself to him so perfectly and he would be a madman to not have a sketch of Alhaitham in this book among all the others. This one is different, though. Through the blurs, Alhaitham’s face is soft and relaxed as his eyes visibly trace over the words and he almost looks boyish.
Cute.
Kaveh always thought Alhaitham to be handsome with his sharp edges and emerald eyes that stand out against the blur astonishingly well, but in truth, he couldn’t have imagined him to be cute. And now that he’s seeing the possibility of it, it makes sense. He’s softened, even but only a fraction. One might consider him to be approachable in this state and it tells Kaveh so much, more than anything has ever said out loud.
The end result is something that feels like it doesn’t belong in this book with the collection of Alhaitham sketches Kaveh has been steadily growing. He compares them, the possibilities of what he could look like if they lived in a world where faces weren’t locked behind soulmates and love. One could tell that this newest addition is Alhaitham, but Kaveh is certain he’s looking at a different version of this young man he feels like he does and doesn’t know.
It feels like a secret, just for him, even though it isn’t explicitly stated as such. It doesn’t matter. He’ll keep it to himself anyway.
*
“Do you know any good bread recipes?”
“Do I look like a chef to you, Kaveh?”
Kaveh says and rests his forehead on the cool wood of the table一their table. “You’re right. You’ve probably never even touched a pan a day in your life.”
“And you have?” Alhaitham tuts.
Rolling his eyes, Kaveh says, “It's our day off and I don’t want to spend it in the House of Deana. I’m here every day.”
“So you want to spend it making bread? To do what with it? You know you can just buy some from the market.”
“I want to feed it to the ducks,” Kaveh says and turns his head, cheek now resting against the wood. He squints at Alhaitham’s blurry face. “And I want to make it.”
“And this has what to do with me?”
“We could do it together. As friends.”
The word, when spoken out loud, feels foreign on his tongue, but it tastes like the truth. Friends, they are friends. He swallows it down, averting his gaze elsewhere when Alhaitham spares a breath to break away from his book. Sometimes Kaveh wishes Alhaitham would put down the book and look at him, really look at him. What does he see, through all the distortion? How does he feel? What does he think?
Kaveh can’t tell.
He hears the familiar sound of a book being shut and set on the table with deliberate softness. Sitting up, he watches Alhaitham’s back as he walks through the towers of bookshelves and disappears behind one some distance away. Kaveh’s cheeks warm at the mere thought of what he might be doing, and by the time Alhaitham comes back with a book labeled with little pots of soup and pieces of meat on the spine, he’s surprised he hasn’t burst into flames.
“It's a cookbook,” Alhaitham tells him. “One of many, so if you can’t find something you like, there are others you can seek out yourself.”
Kaveh nods quickly and takes the book from Alhaitham's offering grasp. The recipes for bread are near the front and for a moment he gets lost in the fancy names and ingredients from other nations he’s never even heard of before pulling himself back in. He goes with one of the firsts, a simple recipe needing only the things he could buy from the market at a price he’s willing to pay.
He rises to his feet and Alhaitham asks, “Find what you’re looking for?”
Nodding, Kaveh makes a mental note of what he’ll need to buy and rises to his feet. “Wanna come with?”
Kaveh full expects Alhaitham to shut him down, to say that the last thing he wants to do on their days off is spend it in the crowded streets of Sumeru, but instead he says, “Okay.”
They abandon the cook book on the table, the pages open on where they left off
*
It's unset by the time they’ve finished baking.
It's the first sunset Kaveh has seen in years with the company of another beside him, the hollowness of his heart an afterthought. Alhaitham’s presence is all-consuming for such a quiet man and Kaveh basks in it. Without the blanket of loneliness surrounding it, he can actually feel the rhythmic beat of his heart against his ribs and it nearly catches him by surprise.
Despite how empty it might be, how the hallowed fullness is both heavy and completely weightless, he too, has a heart. Its there, he thinks, just like everyone else.
They sit on a wooden bench by Yazadaha Pool in a large open section of a park they had walk to find. The bread is warm in a plastic bag as Kaveh holds it against his chest, gripping the tied top too tightly as he stares, mesmerized, by the astonishing colors painting the sky. Oranges have spilled and mixed with pink hues, and dustings of deep purples coat the bottom of the clouds. The reflection on the surface of the lake ripples as geese swim through the water, distorting the image. In the distance, dark rain clouds are rolling in.
It's wonderful to share this view with someone.
Alhaitham jabs his elbow into Kaveh’s side. “We have our first guest,” he says and cocks his head towards the loan goose cautiously moving, shaking out its feather.
Kaveh is quick to untwist the twine keeping the warmth inside the plastic and rips a chunk of the bread off. A place inside him regrets using his first attempt at bread for anything other than to feed his own stomach because it looks phenomenal, and smells amazing too. Backing out now, however, would show Alhaitham that he is weak, even if it is just bread.
He tosses the chunk onto the grass between them and minutes later, more geese flock to the area. They crowd them, ruffling their feathers and pecking at the grass for more crumbs.
“You know,” Kaveh begins, ripping several pieces off, “I’m a goose whisperer.”
“That so?”
Nodding confidently, Kaveh says, “It's true.”
Alhaitham reaches into the bag and steals his own chunk, tossing it somewhere into the open space on his right. “Prove it.”
“Prove it?” Kaveh repeats.
“Geese are notorious for being… aggressive,” Alhaitham tells him and folds his arm over his chest. “Nobody is a goose whisperer, but if you’re claiming to be the impossible then prove it.”
He’s challenging Kaveh, knowing full well that Kaveh cannot back down. It is in his nature to complete every task laid out before him, to never give up. His mother always said it was a good trait, one that made him resilient and strong.
Sometimes, it bites him in the ass. Like right now. Alhaitham is right, again: wild geese are some of the biggest dicks known to man and Kaveh definitely isn’t a goose whisperer. No one is, and if someone says they are, chances are they’re lying.
Kaveh hands the bread to Alhaitham and stands from the bench, slowly inching his way into the flock of geese crowding the ground. He moves into a crouched position when he notices the way the geese are looking at him: menacing, evil.
Realization hits him almost instantly. The more he sits here, surrounded by them, the angrier they get. It takes nothing at all to provoke the birds before they’re rushing at him, making noises and ruffling their feathers. And he’s up, running away, begging Alhaitham to help him, but the man sits on the bench. He’s peacefully feeding the few who lingered around him while a string of aggressive birds chase after Kaveh, picking and pecking at the hem of his uniform.
Kaveh will get his revenge.
Thunder rumbles above them, low and heavy, followed immediately by a loud crack of lightning. At the sound, the birds scatter, taking off into the air or scurrying off to the water, and Kaveh is left breathless, hands on his knees.
“Alright, Mr. Goose Whisperer,” Alhaitham mocks, “We should go.”
The sun hasn’t set yet. They could wait for it to dip behind the horizon. They have time before it rains, Kaveh is certain.
“Hold on,” he calls back and straightens his back. The further the sun sinks, the deeper the colours become. He wants to enjoy it, to burn this image and this feeling into his heart, because who knows when he’ll get to look at a sunset next without the feeling of emptiness sucking out of the peace. Who knows, Kaveh swallows, if I’ll ever feel normal like this again.
“Kaveh. It's going to rain.”
“One minute,” Kaveh pleads.
His feet are firmly rooted in place. He is basking in the feeling, committing everything about the moment to memory. If it were possible Kaveh would capture the moment in a snow globe and store it on a shelf, front and center, so that he may never forget it.
It was outside his family home with his mother by his side and tears staining both of their faces. The sun was setting and Kaveh was looking up at it through tear filled vision, captured by the colors canvassing the sky. He hadn’t known, then, that the sunset before him would be the last one he would look at without feeling dread, emptiness, fear. He couldn’t have known, but if he had he would’ve remained on that concrete step until the sun had completely fallen out of view.
How many people wait for you? Kaveh asks the sun. How many people say goodbye?
Someone called Kaveh the sun, once, because he is always bright, always there. No matter what, he finds a way to smile and persevere. He forces his rays through the clouds because what else is there to do when it's all you’ve got?
What they don’t know is that being the sun sucks.
When you're the sun, you don't know where you are in the sky, or why. You don't know if you're round like the scientists suspect, or if you're something else. Are you large or small? What colour are you? Red? Orange? Yellow? You can see how you warm others, but not who you are.
And the sun is on fire, or maybe it is fire, or perhaps it is something else? Kaveh can't tell, can't see to know, because he is the sun and he has no idea who he is.
The sun is also alone, and the least Kaveh can do, from one lonely being to another, is witness its descent, say goodbye, wish it well.
“Kaveh,” Alhaitham calls again as more thunder shutters around them.
There it goes. The sun dips into the earth and all that's left is its light, though that, too, will follow suit.
“Kaveh.” His name again. “If we don’t leave now it's going to一”
Rain.
Another crack of thunder and all at once the clouds open. It's a downpour, heavy and cold, and Kaveh is laughing at the way Alhaitham’s face instantly morphs into something between dread and anger. Alhaitham is not amused and grabs Kaveh by the arm tightly, pulling him away from the water, from the bench, from the fullness and the peace.
They’re soaked when they make it back to the city and find shelter away from the rain underneath a shop awning. Alhaitham looks at himself through the reflection of a window, peeling off his drenched hat and running a hand through his hair, slicking it back. He shivers where he stands.
Through the distortion, Alhaitham is beautiful like this, with his silver hair wet and plastered to his forehead, his cheeks. The contrast between the depth of his hair and the paleness of his skin is stark. Kaveh could close the distance between them and kiss him. He could caress his pale cheeks and kiss his quivering lips and he could sink, entirely, into the feeling. He could he could he could.
But he doesn’t.
Even though he could, he doesn’t.
“Just so you know, bread is bad for birds. It expands in their stomach and causes them to eat less.”
“Why are you just now telling me this?”
“You looked happy.”
Did he?
Was he?
Was he happy?
“So?”
“You never look genuinely happy. I didn't want to ruin it.”
“Oh.”
“Next time I will.”
They run through the storm, making it back to the dorms with their clothes drenched and clinging to their skin. At Kaveh’s dorm, they part ways, and Alhaitham isn’t totally unpleasant in his goodbyes. I’ll see you Tomorrow he mumbles and peels away, leaving Kaveh, shivering and wet. He watches until the Alhaitham disappears down the hall, until he’s certain he’s alone.
He locks himself in his dorm. He waits at the door for the familiar feeling of loneliness to unfurl, but it doesn’t. Not for a long while.
He does not, for the first time in forever, notice it right away, and it's single handedly one of the most important things that’s happened to him recently because you can’t take forever back.
You can't.
*
Nostalgia has always felt so heartbreaking to him. Things have become much more complicated, scary, and negative as he’s grown older. Mental health, physical health, personal tragedy.
If he could do one thing right now, he would go back to those little moments. The ones he took for granted. And he would close his eyes and appreciate how special they were.
The long drawing sessions he dedicated hours to as a young child that he simply can’t remember anymore. The evenings he spent waiting for his dad to come home. Listening to his mother hum on a walk to the market. Experiences that were so small yet so fulfilling.
And every day his brain thought, "It's fine if I let this memory fade. I'm sure more wonderful stuff will happen in the future anyways!" when that was not the case.
The hours spent happily pretending he was some magical hero, alone, all with no idea that those joyous times wouldn't be remembered as he aged, and is now left with only a handful of minutes worth of memories.
He can never appreciate nostalgia because it will always remind him of something beautiful, simple, and peaceful that was once in his grasp, that he will never experience again.
But this? This forever, this, is something he will never forget. He cannot allow himself to.
*
Alhaitham is absent from the library the following day and Kaveh notices. I’ll see you tomorrow, and Kaveh resists the urge to call Alhaitham a liar. But it's just one day, he instead tells himself. He’ll be there tomorrow.
Only he’s not. Again, Alhaitham does not show up in the library, and Kaveh notices.
“Wheres… Alhaitham?” Kaveh asks the first student he sees upon entering the library on the third day.
She shrugs, adjusting the books in her arms. “Sick, I think?”
The rain. He was shivering an awful lot once they were underneath the shop awning, and Archons only know how long he had to sit like that before he was able to shower and change into something dry. His frown deepens. Alhaitham did try to warm Kaveh before the rain came, tried to get him to leave before the downpour drenched them and Kaveh, caught up in the sensation of normalcy, didn’t budge an inch until he was being dragged away,
Guilt washes over him in waves.
It hangs low and heavy in his chest, weighing on him throughout the rest of practice. He’d been selfish, he realizes, when he blew off Alhaitham’s pleas to leave and instead let the sunset, of which he will witness many more of, consume him. The colours, the reflection on the top of the rippling lake, the feeling of contentment.
Alhaitham told him he looked happy, genuinely happy, and Kaveh hadn’t known if it were true, couldn’t tell. However, the fact that Alhaitham not only noticed but also didn’t want to ruin it speaks volumes, and suddenly puts truth behind them. Alhaitham is many things一rude, abrasive, antisocial一but a liar isn’t one of them, and that is terrifying.
*
Faranak often sent Kaveh a variety of teas from Fontaine when she first arrived there, and although he is more of a coffee guy, he kept the leaves just in case. They sit in a woven pouch on the table next to the cooking pot where Kaveh slowly stirs soup over an open flame. The recipe, just like the bread, is easy and quick; it consists of diced vegetables and chunks of fowl from the market.
And as it simmers, he looks around him.
People, everywhere. Friends. Couples. Soulmates.
People who are in love.
Someone's eyes are doey, a little lovesick. Kaveh could feel that way about someone. He loves in heartbeats. Steady and rhythmic, fast and hard. Beating, beating, beating. He wonders if it's possible for someone to love him for so long, to wake up beside him every day for years, and still look at him like he single handedly hung the stars, like he pinned the moon in the sky.
However, he’s too hard to love. Too complicated. Too much work.
Maybe he is too much work, lacking any kind of payout. Maybe his feelings are too complicated
And the guilt is there. Crushing him. He squeezes his eyes against it and averts his attention back to the soup.
He’s been hunched over the stove all day making the broth and cutting the veggies and putting it all together, but it's almost done now and it smells fantastic. Hopefully, Alhaitham will like it enough to forgive him.
From a drawer he swipes a spoon and from a cupboard, he steals an insulated bowl designed to keep soups and other similar meals warm, and slowly pours the steaming soup inside. Heat radiates through, warming his hands as his feet carry him through the halls of the dorms and he’s searching for Alhaitham’s dorm.
It's funny, isn’t it? The way he’s rushing to see someone who doesn’t want to see him purely to absolve himself of any guilt, for his own selfish need to feel righteous. His emotions have overpowered the critical parts of his brain, the part that would tell him his current actions will do nothing but bruise his ego.
Alhaitham doesn’t want to be around anyone, ever.
Surely, Alhaitham would make an exception.
Surely not.
Because no one in this world is special. Especially not Kaveh.
The outside of Alhaitham’s dorm room is daunting for no other reason than the fact that it's his. Kaveh tilts his head back slightly to take in the other thing and is met with a plain door. It looks out of place next to the many doors decorated with family photos or pieces of art.
Here, he lingers. Hand in a fist hovering above the wood, he falters and for a fraction of a second, he considers turning around. He could leave the soup on the floor, knock, and run away before Alhaitham can see him.
His fist comes down on the wood hard.
Dozens of seconds leave the room before Alhaitham opens the door.
Alhaitham’s skin is almost alabaster. He stands before Kaveh, wrapped in a thick blanket and shivering even though the waft of air that engulfed Kaveh the moment the door opened was anything but cold. His hair is a tangled mess of silver, his shirt is wrinkled and stained. The man before Kaveh is not the same man he meets in the library daily. That man never has a single hair out of place, never allows a wrinkle in his clothes to go unpressed.
This man is the one all of Alhaitham’s strange quirks allude to. Every small frown and rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the table, the strict routine that leads his life every day, every snide remark and contained snort he never lets fully escape his lips, is connected to the disheveled man standing in front of Kaveh. This, he realizes, is the real Alhaitham.
It's adorable, even given the unfortunate circumstances they find themselves in.
Kaveh clears his throat and gestures to the thermal in his arms. “I brought soup for you. I made it but I don’t know if it's any good一”
Alhaitham cuts him off, leaning his body against the door. “Is that all?”
“I wanted to check in on you.”
“Well, I’ve been checked in on,” he mumbles and lifts the blanket above his head to sneeze. “If that’s it, leave.”
“Wait. I can help take care of you.”
A single eyebrow quirks up. “I’m a grown man. I can take of myself.”
“Not to be a rude or anything一”
“As if you ever say anything without such intentions.”
“一but you look like you’re on the verge of falling over. Just let me help. I can get you water and… I don’t know, provide company.”
Alhaitham wipes at his forehead and sighs. “You get thirty minutes. And then I want you out.”
He follows Alhaitham into the room. The inside falls in line with Kaveh’s expectations. It's bare and lacking any real sense of decor, only housing the necessities like a bed, dresser, and desk. There’s a simple leather chair tucked into the corner. But, much to Kaveh’s surprise, there’s a plant on every available surface.
There’s one on the upper shelf of his desk, on one of the end tables by what appears to be Alhaitham’s designated reading chair, on the nightstand next to his bed. They hang from the ceiling in front of windows and free stand on the side of the room opposite his chair.
Alhaitham is a plant guy and it's the most adorable thing in the world.
Alhaitham collapses onto his bed and stretches his legs out. His eyelids are pale as they fall shut over his eyes. He does not make an effort to direct Kaveh around the space, thus leaving him to his own devices. He pops the lid off the bowl and retrieves the spoon from his bag, turning to find that Alhaitham is no longer shivering.
“Ahem,” Kaveh clears his throat and holds the bowl out to Alhaitham. “It's vegetable and fowl.”
He says nothing as he takes the bowl, speculation written on his face, and sits up, planting his feet on the floor. “It won’t kill me?”
“Do you want it to?”
“Maybe.”
Kaveh snorts and falls onto the smaller chair. “No, it won’t kill you.”
Kaveh tilts his head at the reflection of himself in the small mirror hanging on the opposite wall and notices it, the sadness that feels a lot like loneliness but has one distinguishable difference: it starts in his head. It is not a seed that unfurls but a sinkhole that eventually consumes him until he can find the willpower or strength or time to temporarily patch it.
It's just a pinprick right now, no bigger than a piercing, but it's going to widen. It's going to grow every hour and he’s going to let it because, even after all these years, he’s yet to find a way to stop it. He doesn’t know where to start, what to do, doesn’t know if he even wants to try. Whats a little sadness sprinkled in with the already suffocating loneliness? How much more damage can it really do?
He blinks at himself.
He reminds himself to breathe.
This isn’t the place to panic. Not here while his peer is sick as a result of his own selfish actions. Kaveh begs the hole to stay small, to spare him some time, just until he can make it back home. Another day at the very least. Perhaps it can wait until the weekend so he can use his days off to fight with himself because he can’t stand the thought of missing class over this. He will miss class if it gets that bad, and it often does.
Kaveh isn’t that lucky.
When he looks back at Alhaitham, he’s pouting. It's a small look, nothing more than the slight downward tilt of the corners of his lips that he can barely make out through the fuzz. Kaveh wants to use his fingers to quirk Alhaitham’s lips up, to kiss the pout until it morphs into a smile.
What might Alhaitham look like if he were to grant himself such a pleasure? Kaveh imagines it, Alhaitham’s face transforming to accommodate the smile, crows feet forming by his eyes. Dimples, a dazzle in his eyes. He wants nothing more than to draw it.
His eyes grow heavy again and Kaveh is up, moving without a thought, to pluck the bowl from Alhaitham’s loosening grip. He sets it aside and does what he can to help him crawl back into bed, but he doesn’t make it beyond a sitting position in which the simple headboard supports his back. He’s gone, asleep and—
This time, Kaveh sits next to Alhaitham, keeping a pillow between them. And they’re quiet as Alhaitham continues to shiver on the other end of the sofa, as Kaveh stares at them through the larger mirror attached to the dresser. Their reflections gaze back.
In the dark glass Kaveh looks normal, just as he does in reflections of shop windows and the mirror in his own bedroom. He marvels at how they look and more guilt washes over him. He shouldn’t be here, should he? Alhaitham is more than content in his solitude, Kaveh’s loneliness is almost suffocating, and they are nothing more than two people who exist in the same space. Kaveh has, for lack of a better word, infiltrated Alhaitham’s life because it distracts him from his reality, and now he’s left waiting for the day Alhaitham shuts him out entirely.
It will happen. It always does.
Alhaitham’s head bobs in the reflection, though the finer details are obscured. Kaveh casts his gaze to the side. His chest rises and falls steadily, his hands clutching the blanket around his body. Wild locks of hair stick up on the back of his head while loose strands fall in front of his face.
Alhaitham is, unequivocally, one of the prettiest people Kaveh has ever seen. It's the kind of beauty that doesn’t need to be fully seen to be recognized and appreciated. His parents must be gorgeous too, if they were able to give him such impossible and downright unfair features.
Kaveh scoots closer to Alhaitham, closing the distance between them, and gently guides Alhaitham’s heavy head to his shoulder. If he stays asleep with his head unsupported he’ll wake up with a kink in his neck to avoid any future complaints. He does not move as the rest of Alhaitham’s body sinks against him, the pressure almost too comforting.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t breathe.
He watches their reflections through the mirror and it's like watching a life that isn’t his. It is, like most things in those movies, fake; yet people enjoy the lack of truth all the same, and so will Kaveh.
*
Several mornings later, Alhaitham beats Kaveh to the library, as if he were never sick.
“Thank you,” he says and slides the thermal across the table he and Kaveh are sitting at. “I washed it.”
Kaveh beams. “You didn’t have to.”
“This makes us even.”
“Sure, sure.” Kaveh waves his hand dismissively.
At least he can ignore the gnawing feeling a little longer.
And he notices it, then, a slight change in Alhaitham’s face. Clarity. Blurry still, yes, but it's as if it's a gradual clearing of a fog, and his heart races something fierce in his chest, wild and fearful and knowing. Kaveh whips his head around and notices the few faces of his peers are also a little less blurry, enough to make a noticeable difference.
Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Kaveh does what he can to ignore it.
*
“You want to work on this project with me?” Kaveh asks, mouth slightly ajar, his pencil frozen on a mostly empty page of his sketchbook.
Alhaitham nods without looking up from his book. “Mhm. I do. I think it could go well and we could learn as well record quite a bit. Not to mention, it would look good on our records.”
Kaveh nods in agreement. “You can select the topic then.”
“Ancient runes, ancient architecture, and linguistics,” he fires off almost immediately, indicating that perhaps Alhaitham had thought about this a great deal before mentioning it to Kaveh. Typical.
And who would Kaveh be if were to deny?
“Okay.”
Around them, the eavesdropping and lingering students, take this is there queue to approach the table, asking and offering to accompany the two of them on this project.
“Of course!”
“No.”
They answer in tandem and instantly their gazes meet. Their peers freeze and the atmosphere turns heavy.
“We could use the help,” Kaveh defends “It could look good on their records, too. They deserve it.”
Alhaitham looks as though he wants to disagree and for a moment, Kaveh fully expects him to, but instead he turns back to his book. “If you say so.”
*
We’re falling behind.
We can’t keep up.
The effort isn’t worth it.
These are the things their peers tell Kaveh and Alhaitham before dropping from the project. Alhaitham says nothing as they remove their names and shows very little concern, but Kaveh can’t help worrying about those who remain. It is not unlikely for the others to feel the same way and, in truth, he cannot stand by idly. Everyone can shine and stand on a pedestal, that those who lag behind should not be left in the dust.
He realizes, like a slap to the face, the gaps between him and his peers, that their academic levels are separated by intelligence and not age for a reason, but that does not mean that they do not deserve a chance. They, too, deserve to gain something from this just as much as Alhiatham and Kaveh.
“I can help you,” he tells them when he’s approached again by several more who state they need to drop out, and the relief on their faces tell him that this is the right choice.
Kaveh spends many afternoons that expand into evenings and sometimes later helping those who remain scour through old texts, helping them decphire and calculate. Most nights, he walks back to his dorm with heavy legs and collapses on his bed without removing his uniform. The burden is heavy but that does not ruin it's value, the sense of pride he feels in helping others progress.
It makes him feel valuable.
However, Alhaitham does not see it as such.
He notices the eye bags, deep and dark. He notices the ache in Kaveh’s back from being bent over books.
“Why are you running yourself into the ground for people who are simply incapable of keeping up?” Alhaitham asks one day as they’re sat in Kaveh’s room.
Kaveh says, “No one should be left behind because of what they can and cannot do, especially when they can so easily be helped.”
“Not being capable in one area does not mean they are incapable elsewhere, but it is not your job to pick them up. You will suffer and then what?”
It is such a large and fundamental difference between them, Kaveh realizes, but it doesn’t have to be. They can acknowledge it, accept it, and move on. It does not have to be something it's not.
Kaveh shrugs. “Agreed to disagree then?”
Alhaitham does not argue.
*
Tension follows them like a thick cloud, but Kaveh finds it to be easily ignored. They don’t talk about it further, not as Kaveh is splitting himself between his course work, his portion of the project, and the ever growing need for help by his fellows students. He can do it, he tells himself, it's what they deserve.
And he feels it, the way Alhaitham bites his tongue.
And he sees it, too, the distinct action of Alhaitham working his jaw whenever Kaveh offers his help.
That is a problem. The fact that he notices and sees these things with increasing clarity. He knows what it means, on a base level, that he has not only found but begun to fall for his soulmate, but he’s been so caught up with the happenings of his life that he doesn’t know exactly when and he’s trying to ignore who, though that becomes more and more difficult as the days carry into weeks.
It's not important.
What is important is the project and the way those who are left are beginning to drop like flies despite Kaveh’s best efforts. Guilt flares inside him like a wild fire: guilt that his help is not enough and guilt over the relief he feels when they’re gone. He knows that his own work has begun to slip, he knows that Alhaitham has noticed, too.
But.
The last person has left.
It's just them.
Alhaitham is reading over Kaveh’s working, noting that it's not as strong as when they first started.
“Why did you continue to help them, Kaveh? There’s nothing wrong with them knowing their limits,” Alhaitham tells him upon finishing, and slides the papers they’ve written to the center of the table.
Something bubbles in the pit of Kaveh’s stomach. Something hot and burning and it climbs up to his threat, settling there. “Does your ego make you incapable of caring about others?”
“It has nothing to do with ego and everything to do ability,” Alhaitham retorts, his voice flat and void of anything.
Kaveh clicks his tongue, tired of trying to play nice. “You know, you would be much more accepted by the masses if you actually cared about helping them, but instead you stand by and watch them fail when you are more than capable of providing aid.”
“Like you did?” Alhaitham is staring at him, now. “And how did staying true to your ideals working out for you?” He motions to the papers sitting between them.
“At least I can say that I tried.” Kaveh’s voice is loud, booming through the library, and no one bothers to shush him. They all stand, sit, watching two of the greatest minds in the Akademiya fall apart. “That’s more than what you can say.”
Regret fills Kaveh instantly.
He shouldn’t have fallen into this argument with Alhaitham.
He shouldn’t have worn himself down.
He shouldn’t have asked Alhaitham to make bread with him.
He shouldn’t have spoken to Alhiatham out of his own selfish need.
He shouldn’t have一
“Your idealism is impractical, Kaveh. You’re trying to run from the reality that your altruism is not out of care but inescapable guilt. You just want to make yourself feel better.”
一fallen for him.
Kaveh sees it, the sudden clarity of Alhaitham’s face. It nearly knocks the wind from his lungs and stops his heart and he knows that Alhaitham sees it too because his eyes are wide and he’s angry, now. Angry because it is unfair for the universe to play games with them like this, for the world to be so clear now when they are falling apart.
They both know that they’re soulmates but even that monumental fact cannot fix them.
This cannot be fixed.
So what’s the point?
“I regret approaching you that day in the library, Alhaitham. I regret everything after it. I regret being your soulmate.”
The first emotion sees on Alhaitham’s face, one that is not hidden behind a fog, is pain. It distorts and twists into an arrangement of features he hadn’t thought were possible for Alhaitham and the regret of saying anything at all hits him like a bullet wound. This isn’t what he wanted, not what he had hoped for.
But this is it.
This is the end.
*
Alhaitham removes his name from the thesis without a single thought.
In a fury, Kaveh rips apart his copy only to shamefully and regretfully put it back together in the pitiful space of his own dorm.
And time begins to blur as it passes at an agonizing pace.
Kaveh’s mother remarries, solidifying his loneliness further.
So much happens after he graduates that he isn't sure what is and isn't real anymore.
All at once, he loses everything.
*
It's gradual.
Slow.
Aching.
He thought maybe he got lucky, maybe he wouldn’t be afflicted with the usual crushing weight.
But he’s never been lucky, has he? Nothing has ever been given to him, just because.
All at once, it hits him. His heart hits the concrete after falling from the sky. But it is not the impact that causes it, it is the moments after.
Somehow, he has become a magnet for pain. Other people's. His own. He listens to them, and does the things good friends are expected to do. He asks the follow up questions. He cares too much. He makes it his business when he shouldn’t but when he hears his friends are down in the dumps over family troubles or stressing over their relationships he can’t help it.
And he only seems to get shit for it. Or nothing at all.
here
in the loneliness and hallow fullness of his life
he feels it, knows it, tastes it.
emptiness.
*
He is outside a bar
and all he can hear is
sadness.
All he can see is the dark sky,
his breath warm in the air.
It gets hard, sometimes, pretending to be like he isn’t sad. It gets hard to hide from it from his colleagues, the people like Cyno and Tighnari, whom he has grown to call his friends, himself. He cannot fool himself into believing that everything is fine.
The cycle is constant. He tricks himself into believing he’s better, that he will never get sad like that again and everything is fine, until they’re not. Until he feels the familiar-unfamiliar pang in his chest and it's like seeing an old friend you haven’t seen in years and while you’re swept away in the comfort of the familiarity, they
plunge a knife into your chest and twist the blade.
And it finds a place to live inside him, tainting the edges of his heart.
Sometimes he thinks sadness inside him is going to explode through his skin and sometimes he wants it to and sometimes he isn’t sure what that might do to the people around him and sometimes he doesn’t care. Sometimes he’s so desperate to feel, to be touched and loved and seen, that he’s almost certain he’s going to fall off the edges of the earth where no one will ever find him.
Am I better?
Can you be better when the sadness is only lying dormant? Are you better when you still feel that blank, fog settling inside you? Are you better when, as you’re going through the motionsㅡtalking, laughing, listening, drawing ㅡat the same time there’s this lost feeling sitting beside you outside the tavern your friends are drinking in?
Here’s the shape of it. Here’s the gap. Here’s the space where something pleasant once was.
*
The sky is dark overhead, heavy with clouds. He can hear the clouds grinding. He can hear the movement of the stars behind them.
He waits in a tavern. For time to pass. For life to stop being bad/worse/worst.
His mother’s question from long ago replays in his head. Are you happy?
Is he?
Is he?
He is一who is he and is he, even?
Everyone can be altered in an instant.
Fire
reduces to ash.
Water
erodes rocks.
Cliffs
crumble.
Perhaps he is fire? Or the sea? Perhaps he is nothing at all.
The sky cracks, showering sparks of lighting. And he flips back in一a quick somersault into his body.
He is a body in a bar in the world
and all
he can hear is his
heart.
He shakes and
all he can hear
is his mother asking him
over and over and over.
He feels himself
S
H
A
T
T
E
R
I
N
G
he leans on the table
tears in his eyes snot running from his nose
Someone is speaking to him.
Alhaitham
his old friend is here
since when?
what's he saying?
Alhaitham’s mouth has no sound at all.
His mouth is moving but he cannot be heard.
He is atom
against atom
shaking
and he’s so
sad
worried
so sad and worried
he can’t breathe.
He is not
he is not
Is he? Is he not?
He isn’t, is he?